(My posts this week are rather cognitive, so I thought I would add something more visceral... my strong feelings about UConn cheers).There’s a lot to like about being here at UConn, but it does have one big shortcoming—stupid cheers. What happens in a ballgame when its gets very close and the home team needs support? The crowd stands up and spells the school’s name, actually not the entire name, just an abbreviation:
U-C-O-N-N.
(Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYHWQpGx03k)
Doesn’t this speak of institutional insecurity? As if we don’t think that anyone will know who we are, so we constantly remind them—sort of like someone always reintroducing themselves to others at a party.
This spelling would make sense if it was of the university's whole name because Connecticut isn’t the easiest state to spell. In fact, I was here for a couple of years before I got it right every time.
It actually gets worse. Some guy from the community (Big Red?) usually leads the cheers—spelling out the letters with his body--suggesting that the students might have trouble going at it alone.
Since UConn is the #1 public university in this part of the state, it’s high time that UConn students do better in this important matter.
7 comments:
Maybe you should have a cheer contest like your photo caption contest!
For my money, the best cheer ever is Northwestern's from the days when they could never, ever, ever win a football game (I think they are nearly back to this state now!), and would, at the end of another losing effort chant "We've got higher SATs!"
If ya can't beat 'em, elite 'em.
That's funny.
I think Princeton (or maybe Brown) had a similar one when the played Rutgers... "something along the lines of you'll win the game but someday you'll work for us."
For probably the worst school promotion ever...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVENWl8uBeg
Not a cheer, but really, really bad
That is without a doubt the absolute worst thing I have ever seen. I can't say anymore withou being completely inappropriate. Amazing that they would let that out in the public.
At least at My undergrad, our school song was something we took pride in. We even spelled out "Washington State Cougs" as part of the song. Our underachieving on spelling Cougs instead of Cougars is forgivable, because we can/could all spell the full name of the state to which we "belonged." We had that song force fed to us as Freshman and by the second week of classes, most of us had it memorized. Plus, we had much better non-theme song cheers. Basically, our school took pride in our teams. Plus, our football team was not so bad that they got banished from campus. (I realize that this is not truly why UConn plays in Hartford... but why can't they play on campus?)
Hey Andre,
Why in the world, after "Washington State Coug" wouldn't you just add a quick "ars" to finish things out?
As for the stadium, a colleague has copies of early plans to put it on campus, between the campus and Mansfield Supply, but... it never happened. I think getting the free land in East Hartford made the difference.
B
Apparently, "ars" does not fit the rhyme scheme, but "s" does. I think that they should add it on for the heck of it. Then people will never forget the team whose fans spell so much just for the sake of spelling!
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