Sportsmanship Not Profanity

Many great moments in university history are associated with achievements on our fields and courts. Pride in our athletic teams and the opportunity to watch them play are inspiring for Maryland fans. Our athletic programs bring our diverse university community together to taste the elixir of victory on the good days and suffer the bitterness of defeat on others. Our coaches teach us that a team defines itself by how it responds to defeat even more than how it handles victory. The same may be true of our fans.

Our Maryland fan base is large and growing, it is diverse in age and locality, and it is candidly enthusiastic in support of the Terps. When games are played on national television, our fan base expands to millions or even tens of millions of people. Our fans join together in an implicit pact valuing sportsmanship, fair play and intense competition.

Recently some fans in the Comcast Center have stepped away from this pact and demonstrated a type of support that is better characterized by their profane tee shirts and vulgar taunts than by fair play. These failings in sportsmanship and aberrant displays offend most Maryland fans and subject the university community to derision.

While support of our team may be well intentioned, displays of profanity simultaneously debase our team, our athletes and our university. Even more inexplicable is that these displays elevate our opposition both on the court and for the greater audience. What is the character of a person who yells profanity at a student simply because of his excellent play? Like it or not that person becomes who we are. Our fiercest competitors could not do a better job at putting us down than these fans do. The vast majority of Maryland supporters are disgusted by these counterproductive cheers and by the profanity that degrades their university. They rightfully expect positive support for our teams and for our players.

Use of profanity will change when our students decide to change it. When they recognize that these cheers tear down precisely what they want to build, we can move to a place where heated, intense fan support uses biting commentary and clever jibes rather than spewed profanity. I hope that all our fans will consider giving positive support to our athletic teams. They deserve it.

C. D. Mote, Jr.
President

Baltimore Sun, February 3, 2004: When Sport is Sullied by Vulgarity, We All Lose

WTOP Radio (and many more), February 1, 2004: Coach Tells Terps Fans to Keep it Clean

Fayetteville Observer Online Commentary, Jauary 31, 2004: Maryland Fans Getting Out of Hand

Washington Post Article, January 30, 2004: Pro-Terps and Profane

Inside Tiger Athletics, January 30, 2004: An Open Letter to University of Maryland Students

NBC4-DC January 30, 2004: Free Speech or Basketball Rowdiness

The Diamondback Editorial, January 30, 2004: Have Some Class

Baltimore Sun Article, January 30, 2004: Personal Foul Called on Terps Fans

The Diamonback Article, January 30, 2004: Bad Reputation

WJLA-TV News, January 29, 2004: UMD President Calls for End to Profane Chants

Washington Times Artlcle, January 29, 2004: Terps turn to state to muzzle vulgar fans