<p>Published in the Thursday, September 20, 2007 Edition of
By Dan Cagen
Reporter</p>
<p>Two years ago, at my first Boston College football game at home, the Eagles hosted Army. It was one of those games scheduled for an easy win, practically a bye week into the next ACC game. Not surprisingly, BC won 44-7. But some of the students acted as if it were Florida State or Miami out on the field.</p>
<p>As BC rolled all over the Black Knights, some Superfans felt it was necessary to pile on to the overmatched Army players. Chants of “What’s the matter with Army? Army sucks!” filled the student section as the Army team ran in and out of the tunnel to its locker room.</p>
<p>Now I have no problem with fans yelling out insults against most teams; when FSU and Miami come to town later this year, I fully expect to hear the normal jokes telling the players to check in with their parole officers. But there’s no need to be doing that sort of stuff when Army (or Navy or Air Force, for that matter) come to town.</p>
<p>These guys that are getting run off the field by faster, stronger, more athletic teams week after week are the same people who will one day be risking their lives to defend America.</p>
<p>Now, regardless of how you feel about the war in Iraq, these players deserve your support and respect. They have chosen to serve this country; while they’re doing so, they wanted to play some football. They don’t need one of the few things they can enjoy to be taken away from them by some drunken student who is trying to get a few laughs. This has become a major issue lately, especially after the Rutgers-Navy game two weeks ago. Throughout the game, the Navy players were berated by the Rutgers’ student section to chants of, “F- you Navy!” and “You got f-ed up!” Is that any way to treat someone who could be in Iraq by this time next year?</p>
<p>Perhaps worst of all, several Rutgers students defended the action. In the Rutgers’ student paper, The Daily Targum, one student was quoted as saying, “It’s the student section where it seems like more than 80 percent of the people there are under the influence why should that offend anyone? It’s a football game, it wasn’t the U.S. soldiers versus the Rutgers football team. They’re just another college at that point.”</p>
<p>So, according to this student, murder shouldn’t offend anyone who’s drunk, but that’s beside the point. What’s really baffling is that Navy has become “just another college.” I didn’t realize that every college required their students to serve five years in the military after graduation.</p>
<p>Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick tried to save face by writing a public letter of apology to the Vice Admiral in Annapolis, but his school had already embarrassed themselves.</p>
<p>One would hope that this was just Rutgers’ fans not knowing how to handle success, this being their first season in which they began ranked.</p>
<p>At BC, though, more is expected. Obviously, we have more experience handling success than our former Big East rival, but more importantly, this is a Jesuit institution that considers itself one of the top schools in the country. BC expects its students to behave a certain way, even when we put on our Superfan shirts. Let’s hope that includes having respect for our troops.</p>