OT: Jared Sullinger gets spit on by Wisconsin fan

I know the "Fuck You / Eat Shit" cheer has always been a staple at the Big House.

Wisconsin alumni are more or less okay (about par for the course), but their students are as belligerent as any you'll find.  If you go to a football game in Madison, watch out for full beer cans thrown at your head as you walk to the stadium.

I went to Wisco for undergrad in the late 1990's and it wasn't bad in terms of fans being assholes.  But I have watched it change over the past 10 or so years and it's getting really bad.  It's like the students want to be worse than OSU fans now.  They are really getting horrible.  Just not the way a person should represent their university in my opinion.  Thankfully, I'm also a Michigan alum (though it does suck when I have to face the shit at a football game in Madison) so I can claim that the fans of my university are classy.

My money's on Keith Hernandez.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyih_MlVTx0

While I in no way condone the action of spitting on another human being (ever), charging into a crowd is about the dumbest thing one can do. Yes, it's extremely disrespectful to get spit on, but I'm not sure  deciding against fighting vs. several thousand students shows maturity and solid character. It just shows a broad sense of sanity. As much as I hate OSU, the kid puts up with a beating every game and doesn't retaliate. That's where his character comes through. We'll see how these allegations sort out.

According to your story, the Wisconsin fan passes you and starts walking up the ramp. Then you say you were struck on the right temple. The spit then proceeds to ricochet off the temple, striking Sullinger between the third and fourth rib. The spit then came off the rib turned and hit Sullinger in the right wrist, causing him to drop his baseball cap. The spit then splashed off the wrist, pauses — in mid air, mind you — makes a left turn and lands on Sullinger's left thigh.

That is one magic loogie.

...University negligence.  We actually had to study that case in one of my Sport Law classes (RIP Pat Maloy).  There was no stadium or University plan in place to handle the influx of students rushing the field.  Nor was there a plan handle that crisis once it occured.  That's what caused the situation and made it look worse than any other "rush the field" scenarios.

Oh, I was in Columbus for games in 1990 and 1998 and the fans in the stands or the streets were crude in language and overall behavior.  The talk in Detroit on the radio this morning is that OSU fans are the worst. 

What incidents? Let me guess: you personally witnessed a Wisconsin fan, or more likely a drunken group of them, get loud and hostile until they attacked a group of schoolchildren who were at the game on a field trip. They ripped the arm out of this little girl's socket until the elderly nun chaperoning them tried to intervene, but the Wisconsin just fan beat the nun with the detached arm. These guys were so ruthless they only stopped long enough to turn the arm around so they could beat the nun with the bloody stump side. Man, you should have seen the teeth come flying out of her mouth. Then they forced the rest of the class to collect the nun's teeth and make beaded jewelry out of them, which the attackers then sold to other Wisconsin fans who stopped by to share a laugh at the carnage. Did I mention these guys were drunk and the victim was a nun?  They eventually heard sirens and ran away, with rivers of blood, piles of flesh and screaming schoolchildren in their wake. Of course there were dozens of witnesses since it was right outside of Rick's, but for some reason there wasn't a police report or single media account of the bloodbath. Weird.

I've been to hundreds of big ten football games, including dozens at Michigan Stadium. You know what I've seen? Taunting. Everywhere. From fans of every school. I've been taunted mercillessly in Ann Arbor, sometimes aggressively and not good naturedly. It might surprise you to know that of the 110,000 people at your games, not all of them spent time studying Cicero in the UgLi.  Did it bother me? Of course not. It only made Ann Arbor like everywhere else. Some places may be a bit more intense than others but I've never seen the fighting, the spitting, the throwing of glass bottles or batteries, the raping and murdering or other tales of Mad Max lawlessness that fans of one school manufacture to make their rival look bad. Not surprisingly, these tall tales always surface after a loss. It's human nature, a mechanism to cope with frustration. Rather than simply tipping their hat and moving on, some fans have to degrade the character of their opponent to feel better about themselves. I notice, for instance, that both games you referenced were Michigan losses. What, there were no mass graves following Michigan's win over UW in 2008?                   

By the way, your exhibit A of "fandom intensity" (whatever the hell that is) is 100% inaccurate in every manner. Nobody died, for one. The incident, which I personally witnessed, was a failure in both stadium design and security protocol. Fans tried to rush the field but couldn't get past the gates at the bottom of the section, which security left closed.  Rushing the field is not unique to Madison, as we witnessed during your game vs. illinois this fall. Plus, they've rectified the condition. Nobody has been hurt since, including when fans rushed the field after beating OSU last October  (that is, aside from the dozens of Buckeye fans who I am certain reported being bludgeoned with their own limbs outside the stadium after the game).