I grew up loving the University of Illinois Fighting Illini, and just bought tickets to see their game against Iowa. It's a reasonable day trip from here, I love college football and my dad wants to go--his first Illini game in years and one of his first big outings since my mom passed away.
So my beefs?
The tickets weren't cheap (Iowa fans travel so Illinois made it a "premium" game--$32 to sit in the end zone "horseshoe") but so be it. What angered me were the "service charges." This was not a third-party site, the purchase was from the university, but for 6 tickets, I was charged a "fee" of $28. Three bucks a ticket plus $10 per "order." For what? It costs you less than having an hourly employee at the window, and you have my marketing information for a lifetime. I know no one held a gun to my head, but it just left a sour taste in my mouth.
Next beef--it will be my last time to see Chief Illiniwek.
The chief goes away after 80 years, thanks to the NCAA.
I admit to being emotional and perhaps irrational on this one but:
1) Doesn't the NCAA have more important things to do? From illegal recruiting to gambling to shoe company payola to the joke of "student athletes," should the chief be that high on your list?
2) He is not a sideline mascot. No cheerleading, no ramming Bucky Badger into the goalposts. Halftime, that's it.
3) I was at the game when by Frank Fools Crow of the Oglala Sioux presented the costume (Pitt destroyed the Illini that day, they couldn't stop this Dan Marino kid, don't know if he amounted to much)in a respectful ceremony. This was NOT a caricature like Chief Wahoo or Chief Nok-a-Homa.
OK, no one's buying it, but again--another round of sour taste.
AND THEN THIS. (Call the bullpen and have Dumbass start to get loose)
From the Letters to the Editor of the paper that owns this sorrowful excuse for a baseball team we get this bit of idiocy from one Mark Gaddo in Indianapolis:
I have seen a disturbing trend at Wrigley Field as fans have been booing our players!...I also want the Cubs to enforce a code of behavior on the fans. It saddens me when Jacque Jones was being targeted by catcalls, derisive cheers and use of racial slurs.
OK, racial slurs--we can all agree, out. But--booing? "Derisive cheers?" Mark, did you watch Jacque Jones the first half of the season? For how much money?
Mark--
1 comment:
About the Chief - I'm on the other side on this one. Of course, I'm not an aloom, and the one football game I went to I thought the Chief looked like an absolute stupid gimmick. Fighting to keep him is a losing battle, and the fact that many of the bumper stickers around town here supporting him are on cars that also have one supporting W on them makes me very comfortable with my position.
On the other hand, while the racial crap is wrong and unnecessary, booing the Cubs is very necessary. They suck, and booing is the fans' time-honored right to tell them so. When they stop sucking, the booing will stop.
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