Wow Matt your posts are quickly reminding me of how ND's leadership kept me in a perpetual state of aggravation.
This episode seems particularly idiotic. Since when did ND fans wave towels??
Luke - I've got a 'Lou Rag' from the early 90's.
But yeah, waving white towels is idiotic. What genius missed the symbolism in that?
I'm betting Maura Weis. She came up with the green towel thing for the penn st. thing this year, and probably wanted to go with something different. Blue would have been fine.
*green towel thing for penn st. LAST year.
Ok, so I guess towels aren't that terrible of a thing (lame pun intended).
It's Notre farking Dame. Leave the free towels to dirty Pittsburgh fans who need them.
Are we changing the name of the Mascot to the 'Fighting French' now?
Despite our rich tradition and great game time fan chants and gestures, we seem to have a really hard time developing new traditions. Remember that stupid first down hand chop the freshmen started a few years ago? (My apologies if that was your class Matt, but I believe it was the one after you) Now we have the surrender towels.
Even when we have good ideas, like the "Here Come the Irish" chant before the team comes out, we fail to introduce it or execute it properly. We don't need week-to-week traditions. By the nature of our ticket policy and the geographical distribution of our fan base, the stadium is largely filled by different fans every week.
If we want to start a new tradition or revive an old one, we need to introduce it during Frosh-O or other student events and allow it to grow from there. Even then, props are the most difficult to introduce. Next week, half of our fans will have never seen a surrender towel and most of the other half will forget theirs at home. This is actually a good thing this time around, but it also gives us a negative lesson on establishing or reviving game day traditions. Start with the students and keep it simple. Use Frosh-O, the Dillon Pep Rally, and email blasts. And most importantly of all: spend some time thinking about what you are introducing. How many people heard the idea of white towels and gave an okay?
J'e suis francais avec un pennant blanc! Mon Dieu! Surrendeur -- tout suit!
Hypocrite lecteur! Mon semblable! Mon frere!
I am unable to fathom how anyone came up with this idea and didn't consider that waving a white flag is a traditional gesture of surrender. Simply stunning.
But Brendan, can you say you're really surprised?
I gather the students are supposed to be wearing green shirts.
So we have green shirts and white flags.
Green and white are MSU's colors!
Yeah wearing the opponent's colors and waving white flags suffers face validity. It does make me think of the wolf in sheep's clothing. Spartan player: "Hey guys, look at all our fans!"
Thump!
Go Irish!
Maybe they were meant to convey the message: Please don't crush us and plant your flag in our field again.
Commenting by HaloScan
