When you read the article and hear Joe Montana talking about the Tech fans, it's so over the top. The true comedy of the article is in the comments field where GT fans chime in with..."You're an idiot." Yeah, it's Moore's fault that you guys acted like animals. Blame him.
Maybe if the Tech students would take more Yoga, they wouldn't be so bitter.
Downward Dog: A position the GT players will assume in the 4th quarter when ND is up by 4 TDs
pwd
Related: an article in May by GSB about the Fish Toss.
8 comments:
I was there at that game, too. Not surprisingly, I was in a contingent of good Irish Catholics pulling for Notre Dame.
ND has thrashed GTU the previous season, and some of the always touchy fan base was still kind of upset about it, to say the least. Threatening the kind of cheap shot calumny only GTU fans can, they sputtered all week with rage about how they planned to get even. Dark hints of revenge filled the air, and even the sainted Pepper Rodgers (it was reported in the paper) appeared at a pep rally to stir up the frothing at the mouth nerd masses. I feel pretty sure he didnt encourage them to hurl bottled and other debris, but you never know.
My recollection is that ND was handily thumping GTU again, and late in the second half, the GTU students (who, at the time, were seated in the East lower level, directly behind the visitors bench on the east side of the Joke) lost their collective minds.
A hail of large and small liquor bottles started raining on the heads of the ND players....from behind. Other assorted debris (cups, frozen fish, ice cubes, calculus books) rained down, too.
The ND team literally moved out to the middle of the field to take refuge. The always efficient GTU campus police waited until the nerds ran out of projectiles to hurl, and then talked to them sternly or something. No one was arrested, or even thrown out of the game, which ended without further bombardment.
It was perhaps the single most disgraceful show of classless behavior I've ever seen at a football game. It says a lot about GTU "patrons," those self important pencil necks who looooooove to tell everyone how much classier and smarter they are than the rest of us, that I've never so much as heard a single one of them say, "Yeah, that was really bad."
They revere the "jolly good fellows" who came up with that stunt as Tech men of the highest order, as if they were the commando team that pulled off the raid at Entebbe or something.
Tech people are arrogant, self righteous asses. If you look at the comments to Terrence Moore's column, you wont find a single one of them who says, yeah...we shouldnt have done that. They defend it to a man, to this day.
I gotta say, it's a bit much to judge a fanbase off of the blowhards on any internet message board, ESPECIALLY the comments section on the AJC. I choose not to post anything there to avoid being associated with all the jackasses--maybe this is a poor choice since it leaves the situation where not "a single one says, yeah...we shouldnt have done that." Because you're right, it was a pretty unclassy display. And "we" shouldn't have done that.
I use quotes on we, though, because I wasn't there... I wasn't even born, actually, and I would agree it's not that topical anymore. About the only way it would be topical is framing the history of GT/ND, which many football fans may not know.
The problem there is, this is only one small bit of the football history of these schools. Yes, we've gotta take the bad with the good, but I think it's just as fair to get some of the good with the bad. Moore doesn't mention the tamer games prior to or since '78. He just shit-stirs based on an incident 28 years ago.
Well, gee, Jeff.....
You certainly can't be blamed for an incident that occurred before you were born. Your tepid condemnation of those who were there is first rate, I must say. I like the attempt at a segue, the "oh, it's old news. Let's move on" approach worked pretty well for the Clintons all those years.
On the other hand, they say those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. In that regard, it's good to remind you pious hypocrites at GTU, because, sadly, that wasnt the last disgraceful GTU fan incident.
I wont belabor the Tech stampede over the UGA handicapped section, and subsequent massive vandalism, in Athens in 1998. The $100,000 plus check from the Tech athletic department is enough of an "I'm sorry, we were wrong" for me on that.
Perhaps you recall a similar sort of debris hurling to the ND incident a few years ago agaist FSU. They like to brag about it on the Hive. Or the 2003 UGA game at the Joke. Your brave student body hurled all kinds of trash at the UGA band as they had the temerity to....march off the field at the end of their halftime show. I'm surprised Tech nerds had the stones to attack a band after the Maryland band apparently kicked some ass leaving the stadium, but Maryland had the advantage of catching you pencil necks out in the open, instead of being a the bottom of a 6 foot wall while garbage and drinks were thrown at them.
Funny, I've never heard a Tech fan do anything but defend any of those incidents. And as for the AJC comments section not being representative of all Tech fans, you have a fair point. I can assure you that I've never seen much different opinions expressed on the Hive, though.
Yeah, the 78 Tech-ND game is old news. Tech fans and students being self righteous jackasses who dont know how to behave in public? That's still very topical.
jeff,
as all school said. Same song different verse.
When GT fans pelted the refs with liquor bottles in 2002 after the FSU, it was the same old same old.
Source: USAToday
When GT fans fought with the Maryland band in 2001, it was same old same old.
Source: GT student newspaper
When GT fans threw trash at the Maryland cheerleaders in 2003, it was same old same old.
When drunken GT alums wanted to fight my 60 year old mild mannered non-drinking, didn't say anything to anyone father, after the GT vs. NCSU game in 2005, for the sole crime of laughing at the ridiculous ending of that game. It was same old same old.
The 78 article was old news. But only because he didn't put the article in the proper context of an ongoing 50 year trend of boorish behavior. Which is REAL and documented.
Unlike the mythical, undocumented problems most GT fans experience in Athens.
pwd
All of those incidents both of you listed are indefensible. They are all ridiculous, stupid, repugnantly unclassy acts. Folks who do stuff like that are shitstains on the underpants of the Tech fanbase and/or student body. (And none of that paragraph is meant sarcastically.)
The problem for a guy like me is that these things are indefensible. There is no joy in having something related to your alma mater be that gross, and having no ability to remedy it. You find yourself making trying to make excuses or ignore how appalling it is because it sucks so much.
You can't do anything to make up for jerk fans, other than try to not be a jerk yourself. I've talked a little smack to opposing players and fans before, but overall I'd say I'm a morally decent and respectful fan. It sucks to have to be associated with the jerkoffs.
So, on behalf of me and other Tech fans who don't believe in behavior that rude and violent, sorry.
The best part of "big Stinger's" comments below.
He just insulted another GT fan.
LMAO.
pwd
Well LittlePrick, to quote Grace from your badass soap opera blog, "Out of Ten I would score you as a five."
I truly appreciate your balanced and thought-provoking commentary. I hope you'll come again, "my big strong wolf."
Really liked this quote from the Blight's AD:
“My goodness, that other game happened 28 years ago, so I think that some of the people who may have been involved with [the trash throwing] may be running corporations at this point in time.”
Actually Dan, those Einsteins are more than likely picking up my trash, serving me my fries, or working as a low level IT guy. Because people who throw bottles, fish and trash are obviously so brilliant that they would become CEOs. Guess that's what Tech expects out of their "best and brightest."
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