Sigh. Here's a release from IU's media relations department:
The Indiana University Athletics Department is seeking names for the student section in Assembly Hall. The student's selection will be placed on the front of the Crimson Club Student Basketball Shirt. These shirts will be handed out to all student basketball season ticket holders. The student t-shirt is a great way for the students to show their passion and pride for Indiana Basketball at every home game.
...
Student section names will be accepted now through November 17th with finalist selections occurring on November 18th .Entries are open to all current Indiana Students. Students will be able to vote for their favorite name from November 18th-November 24th on IUHoosiers.com.
We don't need names on our jerseys. We don't need new warmups. We certainly don't need some cheesy name for the student section. I'm not averse to all change, but for decades the focus of the experience at Assembly Hall has been on the game itself, and it should remain that way. I loathe the Duke-ification of college basketball student sections: the oh-so-clever names, the overly contrived chants, the painstakingly researched "jeer cards," the stupid left-right-sit-down thing that every school thinks it invented, and so on. Here's what IU's students need to do: 1) show up, early if possible; 2) wear crimson, and you shouldn't need an official shirt to do so; 3) make lots of noise; 4) sing and clap to the fight song. Come on, Fred Glass. What's the point of having an athletic director who attended IU during the heart of the Knight era if you can't get this right? Torpedo this idea, Fred, and while you are at it, get rid of the thundersticks and the oversized foam bricks and the big heads and the pinwheels. It's about basketball. Period. Leave the gimmicks to the nouveau riche and the never weres. IU is, as Mike DeCourcy described it yesterday, one of college basketball's blueblood programs. Let's act like it.
IU students, I'm counting on you. Flood this contest with suggestions that the student section be called "the student section."
And yes, get off my lawn.