LSU Baselessly Scapegoats Greeks For Poor Student Behavior During Football Games, Punishments May Follow

Rob Fox11 years ago

If you ever think your university is doing something solely because “it’s the right thing to do,” then you’re as naive as an SAE recruit who thinks he isn’t going to get hazed.

The truth is, when a school does something, especially when that something has to do with a cash cow like football, it’s rarely out of the goodness of their hearts. Rather, it’s for the benefit of their wallets and the sake of their reputation, and the latter more or less simply feeds back into the former. But hey, I don’t necessarily blame a business for operating like that. The business world is a cold and calculating one. The only thing that’s annoying is when a business tries to claim it isn’t a business, and won’t admit why it’s really doing the crappy things it does. Of course, that’s just America’s higher education system and the NCAA in a nutshell.

At LSU, this uniquely collegiate brand of lies has taken form in the shape of an “inappropriate football fan language” controversy. Apparently, the student section at Tiger Stadium has become so foul-mouthed that it now requires the administration’s attention. Drunk football fans using naughty language? WELL, I NEVER!

From The Daily Reveille:

As LSU finished off its 34-10 stifling of Texas A&M on Nov. 23 in Tiger Stadium, senior associate athletic director Eddie Nunez watched as his fears came true.
Standing on the field in front of the student section, Nunez heard vulgarities hurled from rowdy students during the Tiger Band’s rendition of the popular song “Neck” — the same fellatio phrasing that spurred Nunez and the rest of the athletic department to launch the “Tradition Matters” campaign prior to the Tigers’ showdown with the Aggies.

It’s hard to tell from that paragraph’s phrasing, but essentially what happens is that once a game, LSU fans sing funny blow job-related lyrics in unison, instead of the real lyrics, when the song “Neck” plays. Here’s a video.

Obviously a giant group of students shout-singing, “suck that tiger dick, bitch” isn’t the best look for the school, but why is this a concern big enough to warrant completely restructuring student–specifically Greek–seating? Because it’s (sort of, but not really) affecting one of LSU’s most important endeavors as an institution of higher learning: football recruiting.

Containing sections 105, 106 and 221-224, the reserved section is situated above where all LSU athletic recruits and families sit during their official visits.

“It gets to the point where [recruits’ families] are asking us at the games,” Nunez said. “It’s supposed to be more of an entrusted group because they’ve earned an opportunity to receive these blocks. If they can’t help us in the process of trying to attract these young individuals to come to LSU, we have an issue.”

Are you high, LSU!? Why in the name of God would you sit your recruits, and more importantly, their families, right next to the LSU student section? IDIOTS! You put them with the alumni. Not with the students, not with the dirty Cajuns who dropped out of high school but live and die LSU football. You put them near the most respectable alumni and boosters you can find, which I assume means the founders of Raising Cane’s and, I don’t know, Shaq? Let them observe and be entertained by the student section from afar. Better yet, put the families with the alumni and the recruits next to the students. No normal mother on the planet is going to approve of the behavior of any major university’s student section.

Unfortunately, LSU isn’t blaming this problem on the fact that they suck at seating football recruits or the student body as a whole. Instead, they’ve thrown the blame squarely on Greek houses, and fraternities in particular.

LSU Sports Information Director Michael Bonnette said the focus of the campaign has shifted to the reserved section — blocks of seats available to student organizations registered with LSU Campus Life and where most Greek chapters hold tickets.

According to Associate Dean of Students and Greek Life Director Angela Guillory, Greeks are the sole target of the school’s ire, and it’s basically bullshit.

For Associate Dean of Students and Greek Life director Angela Guillory, it’s a hard sell to exclusively blame the reserved section.

Guillory attended a meeting alongside Bonnette, Nunez, Dean of Students K.C. White, Student Government president John Woodard and Kurt Keppler, vice chancellor for Student Life and Enrollment Services, in December to discuss the issue.

“There was no conversation about non-Greek students,” Guillory said of the meeting.

While it’s pretty much unreasonable to doubt that Greek students sing the inappropriate lyrics as loud or louder than anyone, it’s also outrageous to claim that they are the only ones doing it. Greeks make up 22 percent of LSU’s student population. While it’s safe to assume Greeks make up a higher percentage of the student section than they do the student body as whole, it’s still hard to believe they are the overwhelming majority of it and solely responsible for the singing. The video above shows a massive amount of students, all in unison, singing the lyrics. So why blame the Greeks instead of the student section as whole? Pretty simple, really. If you blame LSU students, you blame LSU. But if you blame LSU Greeks, you blame those misbehaving frat boys, not the school.

I will grant, however, that in at least one instance during the distasteful lyric-singing, a fraternity guy was definitely giving the school a big F-U.

“I actually looked at them, and one of the guys pointed at me,” Nunez recalled. “They see me.”

“They’re laughing at me.”

Pointing at a school administrator, singing the wildly vulgar lyrics the administration hates, and laughing at him? It’s a TFM. Well done to whoever that was.

The school also claims that the R-rated rendition of “Neck” has angered ESPN and CBS in the past.

Coupled with threats from ESPN and CBS to take cameras and microphones out of the student section completely, Nunez said the issue is pressing and measures need to be taken.

I’m not really sure how taking those microphones out of LSU’s student section–if there even are microphones in the student section–would in any way hurt the school or the broadcast. It’s not like the general deafening roar of Death Valley will stop being heard on TV. Also, why would the cameras stop picking up wide shots of the student section if they can’t hear what they’re saying? Maybe just avoid closeups for the three minutes the song plays? That entire ESPN/CBS excuse sounds totally fabricated. It might be, considering how withholding LSU’s administration has been with most of its information revolving around this potential decision.

Also, the videos gathered inside Tiger Stadium brought up specific Greek chapters and pointed out they were causing issues.

Since that meeting, neither Guillory nor White said they have seen the videos, although both have asked to see them. Woodard and Interfraternity Council president Clay Tillotson also said they haven’t seen the video.

“It was subjective information,” Guillory said. “I don’t make decisions, nor will I be public about things that are subjective. There’s nothing worse than being falsely accused.”

That’s not at all sketchy or unfair.

There is one complaint about the vulgarity that is both believable and not the fault of the LSU administration (unlike seating recruits and their families next to hammered drunk students).

White said she constantly apologizes, sometimes it’s in response to an email from a disgruntled alumni or parent.

Old people get pissed off at young people. It’s what they do.

Restructuring the student section is far from a certainty, according to everyone involved. It’s simply a suggested solution.

“Is one of the options moving people? Sure,” Nunez said. “You could kick people out if you want, but we’re not going to go to that extreme right now.”

Still, the blame has landed on LSU’s Greek system, and according to many, including LSU fraternity members such as student government president John Woodard, it’s unfair.

Woodard, a member of the Greek community, said isolating the reserved section would be a “shallow assessment” of the problems enveloping the student section.

It’s hard to disagree with this whole thing being a “shallow assessment.” Right now, it sounds like LSU is more concerned with finding a scapegoat that will clear the school of as much blame as possible than finding an actual solution.

Instead, to reconcile the situation, maybe they should try implementing the following:

1. Stop sitting recruits right next to your drunkest, and arguably most tactless, fans. (Seriously, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!)
2. Tell ESPN and CBS they are more than welcome to remove microphones from the student section, because who gives a shit? It’s not like ESPN and CBS will stop showing up. It’s LSU.
3. Nod and smile when alumni and parents complain, because that’s what they do.

If this was actually a big deal, LSU’s administration would take real measures. Regardless, it’s obnoxious to see the name of Greek life dragged through the mud simply because people will believe it. It’s a pretty cheap tactic, and one that betrays some of the school’s most fervent football fans.

According to a tipster, the video in this article that shows students screaming, “suck that tiger dick, bitch” isn’t of the reserved area where Greeks sit. Rather, it shows the general admission seating for regular students. That tipster was apparently full of lies. The section in the video is one of the “reserved sections.” However, several LSU students have said that the vulgar lyric problem is not one created by nor solely perpetuated by LSU Greeks, but rather the student population as a whole.

So, yeah, LSU is pretty much full of shit.

[via The Daily Reveille]