Remember how offended you were the last time you went to a high school basketball game in Wisconsin when the students began chanting “Air ball?”
Oh wait.
Well, according to the Appleton Post-Crescent, somebody at the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association thought that chant along with others such as “Fun-da-men-tals,” “Season’s over,” “There’s a net there,” “We can’t hear you” and “Score-board” were hurting the feelings of players and other fans and will therefore be deemed “not acceptable” at all high school basketball games going forward.
WIAA director of communications Todd Clark said in an email to school officials that “any action directed at opposing teams or their spectators with the intent to taunt, disrespect, distract or entice an unsporting behavior in response is not acceptable sportsmanship.” He also included the aforementioned chants as well as “Sieve” and “We can’t hear you” as specific examples of such “unsporting behavior.”
Not surprisingly, there are many who are upset with the WIAA’s decision to turn high school basketball games into a gathering of pussies. One of those people? You guessed it: April Gehl, a 5-foot-10 senior forward for the Hilbert Wolves.
Photo: Twitter
Gehl’s tweet unfortunately landed her a five-game suspension, but ESPN’s Jay Bilas won’t be sidelined for calling out the WIAA for lacking common sense:
How ridiculous. The “adults” making these decisions have too much time on their hands, and too little sense. https://t.co/Lm5tVnnMjR
— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) January 12, 2016
Only time will tell if the WIAA removes the ridiculous ban or if they come up with other ways to encourage students to stay at home and raid their parents’ liquor cabinets.
