Idiots Write About Sports

One drawback to watching the NCAA tournament from the comfort of your own home as opposed to a crowded sports bar is you don’t get to experience the dynamics of crowd reactions. Anyone working on a doctoral thesis about mob mentality and fan psychology would be well-advised to spend the next couple of days Margaret Meade-style at the local Legends or Champions or Bob’s Tavern o’ Sports with nothing but a couple of notebooks and a fistful of sharpened Number Two pencils.

The first thing you notice is that unless you’re at bar crammed to the rafter with an alumni group from the favored university, everyone in the place is going to be rooting for the underdog. There are no exceptions to this. At the bar I was at last night, everyone — save for maybe a couple of Kansas graduates who were smart enough to keep to themselves — wanted to see the 16th-seeded Holy Cross Crusaders knock off the top-ranked Jayhawks. Since Pleasanton, California hasn’t seen a large influx of Holy Cross alums in recent months, I can only assume this has something to do with our country’s inherent love for the underdog. And why not? The U.S. got its start as an underdog, upsetting off the heavily-favored British in the regional final, before racking up an impressive series of wins against Mexico, Spain and a two-game sweep of Germany. Damn straight we’re going to clutch the Holy Crosses of the world to our collective bosom.

The other great thing about sports bars is when you have fans from rival teams on opposite sides of the room. You can almost set your watch by how fast things will devolve from good-natured ribbing into outright hostility, particularly as more beer is consumed.

Last night, the bar was packed with UC Santa Barbara fans on one side and Arizona Wildcat partisans on the other. The Wildcat fans, in particular, were aggressively enthusiastic — I think if you were to have a tournament of aggressively enthusiastic college fans, the University of Arizona would be a perpetual number-one seed — clapping loudly and obnoxiously for even the most routine of plays. The UC Santa Barbara supporters took the bait, adding loud and obnoxious claps of their own. By the end of the game, you had both sides of the room loudly cheering everything from free throws to substitutions to random shots of the crowd.

The game ended with Arizona staving off UC Santa Barbara, which, of course, sent the Wildcat fans in the building into a frenzy of celebratory taunting as the Gaucho fans sat silently. Finally, the cheering stopped and the air was still, until one lone Santa Barbara supporter meekly raised his voice.

“Go fuck yourselves,” he said in the general direction of the Arizona fans.

And from his hotel room in Washington, Billy Packer bolted upright in bed and immediately lodged a protest with CBS for encouraging such vulgar behavior.

You actually have no idea just how "aggressively enthusiastic" UA fans can be. These are people who want to push their legendary coach, Lute Olson, into the sea because...gasp...he turned 70 this year! He also must have lost his touch since the team (having made 20 straight NCAA appearances and won 20 games this season...again) didn't get past the first round last year. I'm a Wildcat fan, but, hey, it's kind of time to settle down, folks.