posted by Mike Madison at 1:49 PM /
Today's P-G South Neighborhoods section features a story on behavior by student fans of men's basketball in the South suburbs, obviously inspired by the recent misbehavior at the Mt. Lebanon v. Upper St. Clair game.
There are some interesting and serious issues lurking in the background here. Unfortunately, the story didn't give them enough prominence. Instead, I came away dazzled by the lack of imagination demonstrated by both Lebo and St. Clair fans:
We have buses? We have sidewalks? Making fun of a coach's sweater vest? I knew that the South Hills was insular, but this is ridiculous.
Kids, get a clue. Stop yelling overused slogans that make you sound juvenile and entitled. (Of course, maybe you are juvenile and entitled. If so, don't flaunt it. You look foolish, and it embarrasses the town.) Get organized, and get your rivals to assault their own dignity.
Or, get really organized, and get your rivals to assault their own dignity on national television.
There are some interesting and serious issues lurking in the background here. Unfortunately, the story didn't give them enough prominence. Instead, I came away dazzled by the lack of imagination demonstrated by both Lebo and St. Clair fans:
Student chants range from clever jokes about their opponents' neighborhoods and incomes to more targeted and hurtful taunts about how a player looks.
At a recent Mt. Lebanon-Upper St. Clair game, for example, USC fans chanted: "We have buses."
Mt. Lebanon Blue Devils fans retorted: "We have sidewalks."
Fans of Upper St. Clair are known for waving dollar bills at players and fans from districts that are perceived as less affluent and shouting: "That's all right. That's OK. You're going to work for us someday."
At one recent game, Mt. Lebanon fans seized on a clothing choice by the Bethel Park coach and yelled "sweater vest" at him.
We have buses? We have sidewalks? Making fun of a coach's sweater vest? I knew that the South Hills was insular, but this is ridiculous.
Kids, get a clue. Stop yelling overused slogans that make you sound juvenile and entitled. (Of course, maybe you are juvenile and entitled. If so, don't flaunt it. You look foolish, and it embarrasses the town.) Get organized, and get your rivals to assault their own dignity.
Or, get really organized, and get your rivals to assault their own dignity on national television.
8 Comments:
ugh. you'll forgive me if i'm not surprised.
"Dr. Jansante said a recent theme for the Bethel Park-Baldwin game was for the Bethel Park fans to dress in hip-hop clothes to mock their rivals. He warned students not to dress in a way that could be construed as racist."
oh please. how else could it be construed?? what sheltered, arrogant morons, the lot of them.
heh. To me as a Lebo grad, this is hardly surprising. When I was there (class of 86), there was some sort of running taunt at basketball games involving the phrase "yinz got astroturf."
I also remember that there was a Chartiers Valley home game at Lebo stadium (CV rented the stadium back then) in which the CV cheerleaders had plastered the field with huge banners, about a third of which contained the word "AWSOME" -- spelled just like that.
On the topic of the Lebo/USC ugliness... why is everyone so surprised that high security is needed for games between neighboring rivals? When I was there, the Lebo/KO football games were practically under lockdown. Students couldn't cross over to the other teams side of the stadium for any reason whatsoever. Seems like a perfectly reasonable precaution to me.
Lebo, USC, BP all hate each other and we all know that. The Lebo student section has been getting yelled at by there athletic director and principal for not being nice and coming up with such rude chants. In this article it says lebo fans called out a coach for wearing a sweatervest, and started a Coachs sweatervest chant. WHO CARES. What is the big deal if kids make fun of a sweatervest? Honestly as a fan I would to because when i watch the NCAA and NBA coaches wear suits not sweatervests so yes it is quite funny. One parent from USC commented on the lebo-usc game saying the lebo kids only came to cuase trouble..as a fan of lebo sports why would kids just go to cause trouble? and he said there chants were very rude. OK so they did have a chant about one player getting a citation and another player smoking all the time. Yea its rude to say that about another person, but was it really worth kicking three students out for starting the chant at the biggest game of the year? Now yea i know you all think im rediculous but what if they really were just stating the facts about these two? They werent telling a lie were they or saying false information. If ur a USC fan out there your probably all saying well ur chants at the last game were soo mean against us, and u might not have had any bad ones against us but u know what you do your fair share of it to everyone else. Against lesser communities of status yuo wave money at them saying its alright its ok you will work for us someday. You tell me thats not bad? come on how would you feel if u were one of those players mothers listening to this coming from the USC section. Thats flat out rude. Not all people can have 300,000 dollar homes, 3 bmws, its not all there fault, but it is those selected faults who get cited or smoke. Little kids look up to you as high school players do they really want to look up to a hs kid who does drugs? Lets set good examples here. So yea i am kind of on the lebo side but what it comes down to everyone does the chanting whether u like it or not. Next time you lose to lebo st. clair please just say you lost dont whine cuz kids stormed your court, or had chants, just man up and say u lost. You cant win everything im sorry to tell you that. Thanks
I think we have bigger concerns than what we do with the high school.
Read the 6:32pm post here and the 5:42pm post in the "Students Behaving Badly" blog!
Just a guess, but could we also need a blog... students writing badly?
To anon-3:25pm
Exactly, and now you know why we need "Putting Others First" seminars.
I'd like to add to the mess of going back and forth on who's better.
When I moved here, I had a choice, where to live. I looked at both Upper St Clair and Mt. Lebanon.
Most of the neighborhoods in St Clair seemed identical. No character. The yards were not very big, even compared to Lebo's smaller yards.
Every single house we looked at had basement water issues. On the positive, they all had master bathrooms and bigger kitchens.
Anyways, I ended up paying more for less of a house in Mt. Lebanon. Lebo has a better location, better character (compared with no character), bigger trees, etc.
Anyways, I'm sure that this isn't the reason the blog came up. I just wanted to add my 2 cents. (it would be $2 if I lived in St Clair...)
I think it is kind of "Old School" vs "New School". (or at least Old School vs 80's School)
How utterly disgusting. I mean, I always new Mt Lebo and Yupper St. Clair were full of bourgeois jerks.. It was obvious when I used to drive through on the way to work; but these chants, waving dollar bills at working class kids? If I was at one of these games, I'm affraid I'd have to punch out a few of these preppy punks and take their money.
CSC, don't paint everyone in Lebo with the same brush. A lot of the kids I knew were from working-class families whose parents only lived there for the schools and moved out as soon as the last kid graduated.
I feel like Lebo has more socioeconomic diversity than some of its neighbors, with the northeast being more like Dormont, the south more like USC, the west more like Scott.
...it's still pretty much white as snow, though.
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