F*%# you J.J! F*%# you J.J! F*%# you J.J!
A few years back, when he was a star basketball player at Duke University, this was how J.J. Redick could expect to be greeted by opposing fans. Redick, now in the NBA, was an exceptional player who faced brutal insults at virtually every arena he played in. Other teams’ fans would yell horrific things about him, his family, and teammates. In an ESPN special with Rece Davis, Redick talks about personal stories of being heckled and harassed by opposing fans. Davis says about Redick that “opposing fans love to hate him.”
At college athletic events, fans are allowed to do and say pretty much anything they want. The use of profanity and making threats to players is nothing new. According to Sports Illustrated, UCLA star Kevin Love was left voicemails that were threatening to his family and his own life. One voicemail said, “If you guys win, we’ll come to your house and kill your family.” Another said, “We’ll find your hotel room and blow your f—— head off with a shotgun.” After hearing the second voicemail, he had had enough. He cancelled his cell phone service so he would not have to deal with the fear and stress of playing on the road.
A similar situation happened to J.J. Redick, except he would often receive these types of phone calls around 3 a.m. from rival teams’ fans. Davis reported that Redick would receive 50 to 70 calls a night from people just to say things like, “J.J. you suck.”
“Who has the time to just randomly call someone they don’t know just to tell them they suck or just to tell them they hate them? Get a life,” Redick says about the calls.
Some University of Maryland fans even took the time to make t-shirts that had a picture of him with writing beneath it saying, “I want to name my son J.J. Redick,” and then on the back it said, “and beat him every day”. This behavior was not stopped by the University of Maryland and that game was on national television. By far the most disgusting and disturbing insult he received in his career was in 2004 when a sign was held up by a man claiming that he had sex with Redick’s sister. She was 12 years old at the time.
“I thought it was pretty gross, sick, and twisted,” said Redick.
Duke fans themselves, also known as “Cameron Crazies” (named for the Cameron Indoor Arena at which Duke plays) are equally capable of really bad behavior, and can dish out just as many insults and threats as the next college fan section. Earlier this season a player was verbally attacked by these Crazies. When freshman Tyler Lewis of the North Carolina State Wolf Pack was fouled and sent to the free throw line, the crowd began to chant, “How’s your grandma?” over and over again. The prior week Lewis’s grandmother had passed away.
There are countless examples of fans ignoring boundaries and going far beyond what is acceptable. When people attend a college basketball game they do have the right to say whatever they choose to players, coaches, or referees?
It seems simple enough for the colleges to sanction and penalize the students who chant such things, or wear such clothing, or carry such signs. But they don’t seem to be doing it. College is supposed to be a time when we mature into adults, but this stuff would not even be tolerated at a high school game.
