This post was submitted by Arthur D. Hartnett.

Football is this country’s most popular sport. Americans love the gridiron game, from the preseason silliness to the Super Bowl Shuffle. There is not enough football to be consumed in this country. College football teams have reached a level of popularity that rival the colleges themselves (case in point: more people know that Tom Brady went to the University of Michigan than know that Ann Coulter, yeah that Ann Coulter, also was/is a Wolverine). Schools well known for their academic prowess invest tens of millions of dollars into their program facilities and staffers and athletes in order to generate potentially hundreds of millions in revenue.

I have no problem with that. College football is a ton of fun and speaking as a graduate of a school with a very large football program, there is something indescribable about being part of a crowd of 100,000+ willing a team to success. However, it is not only alumnus and current students that attend collegiate football games. There is an increasing number of loudmouth louts who also attend these games, who bring all of their own stupidity and meatball (read: basic) understanding of the game with them. They get to the game, drink in the parking lots, go into the stadiums and do what they do best: understand little and speak much, often at a high decibel level. The usual, “Oh, he didn’t get the first down, what a homo!” insults fly. From the stupid, this doesn’t bother me as much as it should.

What does trouble me, tremendously, about college football is the exponentially increasing number of students who also partake in this behavior. For better or for worse, drinking is a part of college. For better or for worse, school spirit is also a part of college. When the two meet, however, the results are often baffling and troublesome, or can be, from the LGBT-et al. perspective.

I went to the University of Michigan (surprise!!!). I love every single moment I spent in Ann Arbor, from the day I set foot on campus to the day I stood in the Big House and graduated four years later. Truly, it is one of the best universities in the world; not only for the intellectual climate one finds in Ann Arbor (a true bubble of amazing liberalism in the United States), not only for the academics of the schools, not only for the athletics, but for a combination of everything. I met a fair number of people who never in their life had ever before met a real life homosexual. They’d only seen us on TV, but they certainly were not homophobic. More curious than anything else, most were appalled by the legal denials LGBT people are subject to. I never once had anything remotely resembling homophobic happen to me there, at least directly.

Football games were different, particularly in my last two years when the football was decidedly poor. Chants against opposing players fell invariably into the, “You stupid faggot!” territory. Now, based off of my last column, some may cry that I am trying to have it both ways, not being offended by Johnson’s use of the term, but by college students. As I said, Johnson is stupid. He is not well educated. He does not, nor did he ever, go to a University that has a well deserved reputation for liberal attitudes. Worse off, I myself am guilty of such poor language towards both Michigan and opposing players. Some of these epithets and chants came from good drinking buddies, close friends, roommates and even other gay friends of mine. I know this is not a phenomena unique to Michigan; this most decidedly occurs at Notre Dame, OSU, Texas, USC, LSU, Alabama, Oregon, Florida…everywhere.

I understand the irrational emotional investment people make in their favorite teams (just wait until baseball season comes around), but a larger question must be asked: What has happened to people’s sense of dignity? What is it about football (and sports in general) that reduces otherwise articulate, thoughtful, progressive, decent people to a torch-wielding mob, incapable of expressing frustration without resorting to homophobic outburst? Keep in mind, I’m not talking about the louts and hicks that drive in to watch a game for a school they never went to. I’m talking about the students at these universities. I’m talking about us. I don’t have the answer, but it’s a question that should be asked.

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