Guest Editorial in Today's Sun

[ebilmes]

Lamenting the 'Criminalization of the Lynah Faithful'

Written by amerks127 and myself.

[CUontheslopes]

great article - I think that echoes the sentiment of a lot of us alums/students out there. I would've called for Andy's Noel's head...but that's just a personal thing. I think the guy does an awful job. It's amazing we've had the recent success across the board that we've had considering the handicaps he puts on our programs in comparison to some of the other Ivies.

[mnagowski]

Good article. I'll try to blog about it tonight.

But doesn't the Sun have some sort of ridiculous rule saying that you can't write for them if you are associated with any other campus publication?

[ebilmes]

[quote mnagowski]Good article. I'll try to blog about it tonight.

But doesn't the Sun have some sort of ridiculous rule saying that you can't write for them if you are associated with any other campus publication?[/quote]

Interestingly, after both the Cornell Progressive and Cornell Review addressed this rule in recent issues, the Sun changed its policy so that you can write for multiple publications.

Regardless, I don't think the same restrictions applied to guest columns as to news reporting or a regular column.

[Chris '03]

It frustrates me that Noel's tenure will be remembered as a golden era for success on the field.

[Jacob '06]

[quote Chris '03]It frustrates me that Noel's tenure will be remembered as a golden era for success on the field.[/quote]

And you don't think he has had anything to do with it being a golden era?

[Chris '03]

[quote Jacob '06][quote Chris '03]It frustrates me that Noel's tenure will be remembered as a golden era for success on the field.[/quote]

And you don't think he has had anything to do with it being a golden era?[/quote]

I think a majority of the recent on-the-field accomplishments have been despite his work not because of it.

[Jacob '06]

[quote Chris '03][quote Jacob '06][quote Chris '03]It frustrates me that Noel's tenure will be remembered as a golden era for success on the field.[/quote]

And you don't think he has had anything to do with it being a golden era?[/quote]

I think a majority of the recent on-the-field accomplishments have been despite his work not because of it.[/quote]

Having zero inside knowledge, I find that hard to believe.

[mnagowski]

[quote Jacob '06][quote Chris '03][quote Jacob '06][quote Chris '03]It frustrates me that Noel's tenure will be remembered as a golden era for success on the field.[/quote]

And you don't think he has had anything to do with it being a golden era?[/quote]

I think a majority of the recent on-the-field accomplishments have been despite his work not because of it.[/quote]

Having zero inside knowledge, I find that hard to believe.[/quote]

Count me in too. Say what you want about the policies of the ticket office, which I agree are problematic, but I would tend to think that Andy has been a net positive factor at Cornell.

I posted a bit of this on the blog, for what it is worth.

[Will]

Addressing a few points made in the article:

High prices for student tickets limit the Cornell fan base and result in empty seats. By comparison, 2008 NCAA champion Boston College offers free tickets to students

BC students are notorious for being bad hockey fans.  Except for games against BU, I'm pretty sure BC home games rarely sell out.  I'm sure BC would love to gouge their students if they thought they could get away with it.  But it appears that they can't, at least as far as hockey goes.

The tradition of throwing fish at Harvard, which Cornell head coach Mike Schafer '86 described in the New York Times in 2006 as "a fun tradition that has lived on over the years," has been stifled under Noel's tenure, as security guards pat down students entering the rink.

And yet, the fish still make it into the rink, and the fish still fly.  Athletics has to make at least a token attempt to curtail the fish, in the spirit of "good sportsmanship" and whatnot.  Think of it this way: it should be a fun challenge for the students to sneak fish into the rink and not get caught.

This criminalization of the Lynah Faithful extends to cheering, as students frequently lament that they are afraid to start new cheers or yell loudly for fear of having their season tickets revoked (and not refunded) by the administration. Ushers patrol the staircases and openly glaring at students, as if daring them to finish "rough 'em up ..."

Do the students in question realize that cheering can happen without dropping f-bombs and constantly repeating "[school name] sucks!"?  If the students are truly being ejected for merely being loud and crazy without repeating words that rhyme with 'puck', then yeah, the ushers need to lay off.  But if students are pissed that they can't say "Fuck Harvard" inside of Lynah without reprisal, then I'm fine with their ejection, if only because the Faithful could stand to use some more creative cheering.  (Which isn't to say that the student sections are completely devoid of creative cheers, but this is a case where more truly creative cheers can only be a good thing.)

While Cornell hockey fans are renowned for traveling in droves to road games ("Lynah East"), there was comparatively very little undergraduate presence at away contests this year.

Except for the fan bus thing, which I would love to see happen on a regular basis, this can hardly be blamed on Cornell Athletics.  A healthy number of students made trips in past years among varying levels of Athletics fucking things up, and no fan bus.  It's more likely any decline in road game attendance can be blamed on rising gas prices.

Don't get me wrong, Mitch and Elie.  I agree with and support most of what you said in the article.  But I think a few of the points aren't quite as simple as you make them out to be.

[Jordan 04]

[quote Will] A healthy number of students made trips in past years among varying levels of Athletics fucking things up, and no fan bus.  It's more likely any decline in road game attendance can be blamed on rising gas prices.
[/quote]

I'd guess this more likely is correlated to the success of the team.

It's simply more fun for fans to make a road trip devoted to hockey when they are confident they will watch a victorious weekend, instead of wondering if they're going to put up a couple stinkers.

[Jim Hyla]

Well, this seems to come up every year or so. To add to the critique, do you realize that the concern of fish on the ice predated any current students and the current AD. Some of us can remember penalties given to CU for fish, and other objects, thrown by students. Everyone associated with the hockey program wanted some control of the fish situation. Yes Coach Schafer did say the tradition was fun, but he also wanted it controlled.

You should also know, if you did your research, that it was coach Schafer who wanted the language cleaned up. It was brought up early in his tenure. The ADs only implemented what he wanted. Yes the linguistic police go overboard, but it does not stop you from starting new clean cheers.

Although I also worry about the high ticket prices, they also raised "townie" prices and I have 4 seats, how many out there gave to the Lynah renovation project? The non-sellouts only occurred with the extra seats. I wonder how many of the last couple of years non-sellouts would have been sellouts with the old rink? I predict an NCAA challenging team would fill the rink, regardless of the new prices. To say that the reason for empty seats is the price, fails to adequately asses all reasons. And I do know the teams "mediocrity" was mentioned in the article, but almost as an after thought.

Do you know that Coach Schafer changed the senior night program to after the game because of poor fan attendance at the beginning of the game? He didn't feel it was fair to the seniors to do it in front of a half filled rink. True enthusiasm has been going down for years, long before the current AD was involved.

In areas of agreement, I would also like to see a system that rewards the true fan in seat selection, the ideas presented are reasonable.

As many of you know, I've had my run ins with AD Noel, but I've also had to respect his position and overall feel he has done a good job. He's not a touchy-feely person, and I've got personal experience with his anger, but he is also someone who can listen to reason and make changes. He was man enough to send me a hand written note apologizing for what he said to me.  For anyone who has gone through the video broadcast troubles, I hope you can say it has gotten better. Certainly the athletic website is better.

We can criticize all we want, but much of what you are critical came first from the coach and not the AD. A little deeper research could have made a more complete article.

[ebilmes]

[quote Will]Addressing a few points made in the article:

High prices for student tickets limit the Cornell fan base and result in empty seats. By comparison, 2008 NCAA champion Boston College offers free tickets to students

BC students are notorious for being bad hockey fans.  Except for games against BU, I'm pretty sure BC home games rarely sell out.  I'm sure BC would love to gouge their students if they thought they could get away with it.  But it appears that they can't, at least as far as hockey goes.[/quote]

OK, obviously by the same token Cornell charges next to nothing for equestrian games (matches?) because no one goes. Gouging is a legitimate business practice, but in this case it's unethical. We understand the differences between Cornell and BC fans...we were using the examples as a rhetorical device.

The tradition of throwing fish at Harvard, which Cornell head coach Mike Schafer '86 described in the New York Times in 2006 as "a fun tradition that has lived on over the years," has been stifled under Noel's tenure, as security guards pat down students entering the rink.

And yet, the fish still make it into the rink, and the fish still fly.  Athletics has to make at least a token attempt to curtail the fish, in the spirit of "good sportsmanship" and whatnot.  Think of it this way: it should be a fun challenge for the students to sneak fish into the rink and not get caught.

But it's not a fun challenge. There's nothing fun about having to stuff fish down your pants because you can't bring it in legitimately. It's not like they turn a blind eye, either. Many people end up wasting money buying fish because they get caught.

This criminalization of the Lynah Faithful extends to cheering, as students frequently lament that they are afraid to start new cheers or yell loudly for fear of having their season tickets revoked (and not refunded) by the administration. Ushers patrol the staircases and openly glaring at students, as if daring them to finish "rough 'em up ..."

Do the students in question realize that cheering can happen without dropping f-bombs and constantly repeating "[school name] sucks!"?  If the students are truly being ejected for merely being loud and crazy without repeating words that rhyme with 'puck', then yeah, the ushers need to lay off.  But if students are pissed that they can't say "Fuck Harvard" inside of Lynah without reprisal, then I'm fine with their ejection, if only because the Faithful could stand to use some more creative cheering.  (Which isn't to say that the student sections are completely devoid of creative cheers, but this is a case where more truly creative cheers can only be a good thing.)

If you're driving on the highway, say under the speed limit, but a cop tails you for two hours straight, is that cool? I can live with not swearing, but I don't like having ushers sneak up on me to try to catch me, or stare at me during cheers for the same reason. Pressuring students to use clean language does not necessarily promote increased creativity.

While Cornell hockey fans are renowned for traveling in droves to road games ("Lynah East"), there was comparatively very little undergraduate presence at away contests this year.

Except for the fan bus thing, which I would love to see happen on a regular basis, this can hardly be blamed on Cornell Athletics.  A healthy number of students made trips in past years among varying levels of Athletics fucking things up, and no fan bus.  It's more likely any decline in road game attendance can be blamed on rising gas prices.

Our point was mainly that Athletics's poor treatment of hockey fans has turned off fans who might otherwise make road trips. Fewer dedicated fans means fewer traveling Faithful.

Don't get me wrong, Mitch and Elie.  I agree with and support most of what you said in the article.  But I think a few of the points aren't quite as simple as you make them out to be.

I appreciate what you wrote, and much of what we said can be argued both ways. We're inclined to place most of the blame on Athletics' shoulders.

[ebilmes]

Jim,

Controlling the fish situation means making sure fans don't toss things onto the ice at the wrong times. Throw them once, and then that's it. No policy is comprehensive enough to control idiot fans.

As I said in response to Will's post, I don't have much of a problem with cracking down on language, but I'd prefer not to live in a 1984-like environment in which anything I say could result in losing my season tickets.  This fear often stops people from creating new cheers.

I agree with you that a top-caliber team would fill the seats. But this team hasn't done that over the past couple years, and so Athletics needs to adjust. That said, I have no doubt that the rink would sell out nightly at $8 a student ticket.

We did not call for Andy Noel's resignation. I have very little personal experience with him, but I will always remember how horrified I became after listening to him attempt to defend his Lynah crusade at an SA meeting. Sure, the website and video feed have gotten much better, but that's not saying much given where they started.

[billhoward]

One member of the Lynah Faithful recently pointed out to us, "Few businesses treat their biggest customers with the least respect."

A second rude shock awaits the undergraduate Lynah Faithful who graduate to become frequent business flyers.

What you see as creative and energetic cheering may be seen from the other side as (some cheers, some of the time, from some fans) may be seen as boorish and vulgar. Not everyone thinks the F-bomb spurs Cornell to victory. But still, maybe Cornell security could lighten up a bit.

Andy Noel probably is the source of your problems -- the buck stops at his desk, or at least at the ticket window -- but you've got to give the devil his due. He's also the guy who's hired and/or kept on board people like Schafer, Tambroni, and Donahue. And the facilities in Ithaca are looking better this decade than before.

But otherwise, very nicely said.