The 17th ranked Texas A&M Men's Tennis Team played #4 ranked Ohio State last night in Aggieland. Serving as a chair umpire, I had the opportunity to observe the spectator behavior. Former Aggie players were chanting at the Ohio State players, before, and sometimes even during points. This was especially obvious during doubles as the entire Aggie crowd and the few Ohio State fans were gathered just above 3 courts of doubles play. Signs were being waved in the air as Ohio State players were about to receive serve, taunting done by several in the crowd, and extremely loud cheering at errors was the rule and not the exception. The Ohio State coaches were not happy with their hosts and said as much to the Aggie coaches and then to ALL the chair umpires as well. I made my many standard chair umpire courtesy announcements to the crowd as did my fellow chair umpires, which were all drowned out by the loud and boisterous cheering on all courts. My tennis friends, this is the TRUE face of COLLEGE TENNIS...I can tell you that the Aggies 12th man DOES make a difference. Ohio State fell last night to the Aggies 4-0. (Scoring is different for collegiate tennis than for leagues.)College tennis is a VERY different venue than league tennis...we in leagues still have expectations of proper decorum in cheering on our team and believe it or not, there are boundaries even in collegiate duals. Some schools have higher expectations than others as with anything in life. I hope that all of you who read this will come out to a UT match in the next week and observe the energy in the air. It's a completely different atmosphere and it's HUGE FUN!
- UT Women take on the Texas A&M Aggies this Saturday at noon and parking is FREE street-side.
- #3 ranked UT Men take on UTSA on Thursday evening, March 17th. Dual starts at 6:00 p.m. and parking is free from 6:00 p.m. on street-side.
- #3 ranked UT Men also take on the #1 ranked Virginia Cavaliers on March 20th at noon...they'll want a large crowd for this big match so I hope you'll consider attending.
4 comments:
Rudest fans EVER are at Texas A&M
After yours, the ref and the coaches warning... Code them when they talk directly to the player! That should stop them. I cannot believe that Steve Denton did not talk to the crowd - he is usually on top that stuff!
stop your crying and grow a set, if you can!
Grrr...hiss.
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