OSU fans: The new Detroit?

It has recently been all the rage on Michigan blogs all across the internets to share horror stories about visits to Columbus. This is usually offered as evidence that OSU fans are thugs/criminals, take football waaaay too seriously, or are in some way a lower form of life than those who gird themselves in maize and blue.

This, somewhat ironically, has come on some of the same blogs where people bashing Detroit are decried as beating a dead horse.

I will happily admit that this element of OSU fan-dom exists, and concede that perhaps said element exists in a slightly larger percentage of the fanbase than it does at other schools. I personally think that has a lot to do with OSU being such a "state school" and the fact that non-alums tend to affiliate themselves with OSU at a much greater rate than other schools around the country.

In my experience, there's a big difference between Michigan grads and Michigan fans. One group tends to be well-educated, well-spoken and decent human beings. The others tend to be the kind of people who watch NASCAR, wear camoflouge, spend a lot of time out in the woods and tithe 10% of their income at Cabela's.

The same thing is true at OSU, although I think the percentage of the second group is a little higher.

My issue is with the perception that "these things don't happen at Michigan", or that they at least don't happen with anything close to the frequency or intensity.

Bullshit.

I've been to the last five OSU-Michigan games in Ann Arbor, starting in 1997. Two of those times (2001 and 2003) I was working the game for a media outlet. That meant I was sitting in the press box and not wearing anything that would have identified my allegiance.

In 1997, one of the guys I was with was hit with a thrown object (golf ball? battery? who knows?) at the College Gameday set. After the game, we spent an hour trying to get out of the stadium from out seats in row 2. Michigan fans knocked one of my friends down a couple rows of seats and a particularly kind Michigan fan decided to quench my parched throat by dumping a beer on me.

In 1999, I walked out of the stadium to chants of "OSU sucks" and "Fuck the Bucks" (it's clever because it rhymes) from Michigan fans. Many were students, but one older guy (the typical non-UM grad fan; wearing a camoflouge jacket, Block M hat and sporting a mustache) got right up in my face.

In 2001, a fan with OSU car flags who had parked near me returned to his vehicle after the game to find that an obscenity had been keyed in his paint.

In 2005, we were seated next to two Michigan fans who were so drunk that one of them fell over the row of fans in front of us during pregame warmups. The other was beligerant and cursing at us for the better part of a half-hour before passing out sometime in the middle of the first quarter.

I saw the always clever "Buck the Fuckeyes" shirts had gained in popularity, along with one that carried the caption "OSU Sucks" and depicted an OSU cheerleader... umm... servicing a Michigan football player.

These sorts of things are decried by Michigan fans as being childish and profane when seen in Columbus, and they are. But they're equally so in Ann Arbor. You can talk all you want about how many you see or who's wearing them, but the fact is that element of the fanbase exists in both places.

When OSU fans refer to Michigan as scUM or dUMb, it's an indication of their obsession and inferiority complex. When Michigan fans refer to OSU as tOSjoaU (The Ohio State Joke Of A University) or "THE MINIMUM SECURITY PRISON AND HOME FOR THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED" or any of several other monikers, it's because they're clever and OSU is stupid/crooked.

"Lllloyd" is hackneyed and unfair to a fine human being. "Cheatypants Sweatervest" is funny.

People yelling "Fuck Michigan" in public should be forced to stop by other members of the fanbase. Hockey fans chanting "Chump, dick, wuss, douchebag, asshole, prick, cheater, bitch, whore, cocksucker" is just people being spirited and creating a good atmosphere. (It's nice to see that after a decade or so, the school is actually pretending to care about that now.)

Three words, Michigan fans: Get over yourselves.

You've got the same assholes in your midst that everyone else does. If you want to pretend that there's some huge difference in the percentage, that's fine. Whatever makes you feel better about yourselves.

No one is arguing that there aren't a number of dumbasses who choose to cloak themselves in scarlet and gray. A cursory glance at any number of OSU message boards will confirm that (Good tipoff: Playing the "4-1, you're just jealous" card on people calling your fanbase thugs).

But let's not pretend that your Block M hat comes with a diploma from the Emily Post School of Refinement.