THE AMERICAN HOOLIGAN, Part 2: Texas Tech tries to keep fans from crossing the line

AMERICAN HOOLIGANS: Texas Tech tries to keep fans from crossing the line

Friday, September 26, 2008

By Chad Conine

Tribune-Herald staff writer

LUBBOCK — Ryan Kelley had plenty on his mind without the assault on his self-esteem.

Kelley, a senior defensive back for Eastern Washington, lined up across from one of the most elusive players in college football, Texas Tech wide receiver Mike Crabtree, on most plays during the first Saturday of the season at Jones AT&T Stadium.

A crowd of more than 50,000 showed up on a moderate West Texas evening for the Tech-Eastern Washington game Aug. 30.

'American Hooligan'

Tribune-Herald staff writer Chad Conine is touring the Big 12 South and beyond this fall to take a closer look at the battle between passion and sportsmanship, and to try and answer this question: Are college football fans becoming the American version of English soccer hooligans?

More fans have been packing the stands for Red Raider home games lately, even when Tech’s not playing a rival like Texas or Texas A&M. For better or worse, the new breed of Red Raider fans have earned a reputation for making their home stadium a difficult — sometimes nasty — place to visit.

It’s a safe bet that most of the Tech enthusiasts on hand for the Raiders’ season opener hoped to see Crabtree add to his highlight reel. So when Kelley did his best to keep the Tech receiver out of the end zone, he encouraged some of those fans to chant his name.

Not in a polite way.

The red-faced Red Raider fans nearest the field on the east side of the stadium leaned over the rail that separated the north end zone from the bleachers. At first they fired sporadic insults in Kelley’s direction. But they soon joined together in a two-word declaration, unfavorably comparing the Eagle defensive back to a vacuum cleaner.

Kelley’s mother, grandmother, girlfriend and uncle sat just a few feet away from the chanting fans. They waved a replica of his No. 3 jersey and played along in the pageant that is college football.

“It’s all fun and games,” said Kenneth Brooks, Kelley’s uncle.

While Kelley’s family, representing a significant portion of the Eastern Washington fans in attendance, laughed off the back-and-forth with the Tech fans, emergency medical technician Kendall Stanaland was less amused.

Stanaland’s assignment on most game days at Jones AT&T Stadium is to be stationed on the east sideline and ready for medical emergencies. By the first game of the 2008 season, he’d been there and heard enough to lose his sense of humor about the things shouted by a particularly rabid section of fans.

“These are some of the most vulgar people you’ll ever hear in your life,” Stanaland said. “I haven’t been to some of the other places, but these people are bad.”

It’s a problem Texas Tech has attempted to address.

Like the Big 12, with its ongoing “Be a good sport” campaign, Texas Tech is trying to reach fans, preaching “Raider Power.”

For generations, “Raider Power” has been a familiar chant for the Texas Tech faithful. So when Tech athletic director Gerald Myers called for a sportsmanship initiative, it seemed natural to tie the two ideas together.

Blayne Beal, Tech’s associate director of media relations, said the school’s approach is to equate Raider Power with the themes of pride, respect, honor and tradition. They began the campaign at the start of the 2007 season with the message stamped on T-shirts and posters, and advertised the Raider Power campaign on the RaiderVision video board during games.

“Gerald Myers was concerned that the phrase ‘sportsmanship’ just gets thrown around and people lose sight of what it means,” Beal said. “He wanted us to define it in a way that meant something to Texas Tech people.”

It helped that the athletic department had an ally within the student body to boost Raider Power.

The Saddle Tramps have been a part of Texas Tech football since 1936, raising a ruckus at every home game.

But the Saddle Tramps are also committed to positively cheering for Texas Tech.

Louis Little, Saddle Tramps vice president and a graduate of Vanguard Preparatory School in Waco, pointed out that the group was founded as an effort by the school to curb bad fan behavior.

Obviously, it’s an ongoing battle.

“Raider Power is putting out there how you should act,” Little said. “We do everything we can to help with that. Since I’ve been here it’s gotten better.”

Perhaps the most daunting challenge for the Saddle Tramps and Raider Power is just getting the student body to sing the traditional version of the Tech fight song.

Red Raider fans, especially the students it seems, have replaced the line “We will wreck ‘em Texas Tech” with a new line featuring more than one expletive.

The Saddle Tramps have launched their own T-shirt campaign with the traditional lyrics of “Wreck ‘Em Tech” prominently displayed, and the message “Don’t Mess With Our Fight Song.”

But judging from the buzz around the stadium, for every Tech alum who cringes upon hearing the alternative version of the fight song, there’s a younger fan who thinks it’s hilarious.

And clearly the student fans have taken over the atmosphere at Red Raider games.

Since 2004, Texas Tech has averaged more than 50,000 fans per home game in each season. Red Raider coach Mike Leach has brought offensive fireworks to the South Plains, and that’s generating more excitement on campus.

The students have gained better seats from the deal — their section now includes the lower half of the east side of the stadium and curves around through the south end zone. The choice seats go early as the stands begin to fill up more than an hour before game time.

Even for a nontelevised contest against Eastern Washington, many of the Tech students, male and female, paint their bodies and engage in the game from the opening kickoff.

But they’re not all hooligans. The majority of the students, including the body painters, seem like students anywhere. One minute they’re cheering a touchdown, the next they’re goofing around with a buddy standing on the next seat.

‘Have to change a culture’

The mood changes when one heads north, passing the visiting team’s bench and leaving behind the Saddle Tramps and The Goin’ Band From Raiderland.

The Tech fans in the northeast corner, butted up against the visiting fans in a precarious arrangement, are the ones who will tell an opposing defensive back how much they think he, ahem, stinks.

Late in the first quarter, Texas Tech moved north toward the Eastern Washington end zone, once again bringing the battle between Crabtree and Kelley in front of the most vulgar section of Raider fans.

The Tech fans’ newfound animosity toward the mostly anonymous Eastern Washington defensive back reached a fever pitch. It peaked when Crabtree scored his first touchdown of the season, on a four-yard pass from Graham Harrell. But instead of cheering their would-be hero, some of the Raider fans screamed like hyenas at Kelley.

“It’s not something we can change overnight,” Beal said. “We have to change a culture starting from now and it’s something we’re going to have to work for over the years.

“Once we get to the point where people think of Raider Power and they automatically think ‘honor, respect, pride, tradition’ then I think we will have really achieved something.”

For the moment, however, if Tech fans get so riled up over an obscure opponent like Eastern Washington, imagine the profanity that will spew from the stands when the Red Raiders host Oklahoma State or Texas later in the season.

“Our fans are so excited about football and sometimes we get so excited that you lose sense of where you are,” Beal said. “We can’t change over night. We have to focus on our new students coming in and telling them that to be a fan is to cheer positively for your team.”

cconine@wacotrib.com

757-5711