or a fan of a team that rips the scrotum of a fan from another team?
there are levels of classlessness and there are individual acts that are an abomination to call it fan behavior in the first place. IMO poor fan behavior as a group and these other types of acts are not even comparable. To lump the example of a group of students that disrupt a game enough that they are asked to leave (as an entire group) and the acts of death threats or scrotum tears is perplexing at best.
I've been thinking about this today... though we care a lot about our Buffs, anyone with half a Fusker degree could tell you the level of passion and fervor that Colorado football arouses in Boulder and Denver is minuscule compared to the sort of insanity that occurs in Lincoln, Norman, Gainsville, Columbus, and Baton Rouge every fall. But I'm glad things are that way.
In Boulder, football is an activity. It's a reason to celebrate. It's entertainment. In "big time football" towns, the fanaticism that follows their successes and failures borders on the absurd; it's regularly referred to as a religion, and but it's more like a leaderless cult. By merit of their obsession with the game, the people in those towns have a great deal more "respect" (as they'd put it) for football, their stadium, opposing fans, and etc... but they're also so dependent on their football team for ego gratification that they are incapable of dealing with losing. They are so mired in their program's history and culture that they can't understand how someone could conceivably root for any other team than their own. Put simply, they're nuts.
This is why in Boulder you don't have to look far to find plenty of trash talking, binge drinking, and the occasional bout of garbage tossing, because we don't equate going to a football game with attending Sunday mass. But you'll never hear about a CU fan calling in a death threat on a coach, or a player, or anyone else associated with the program. You'll never hear about a CU fan castrating a Nebraska fan, or biting off the nose of a visiting KState alum.
Most people at CU and Nebraska alike are perfectly rational people, but it's the fringe elements that leave scars on college football programs. I'd imagine that CU has the same percentage of unruly fans within the Buff faithful as Nebraska has within their nefarious red army, but the difference is that our unruly fans are more likely to tell an opposing fan to "**** off", then throw a hotdog at them. Their unruly fans are more likely to... well, to threaten to murder their defensive coordinator.
Personally, I'll take a tempermental fan base with leanings towards belligerence over a devoted fan base with leanings towards sociopathic behavior any day of the week. Especially Saturdays. :smile2: