The couch, the couch, the couch is on fire!
I just don't get Sparty. Why burn couches? It's just bizarre. Way to represent the B1G!
* If someone else already posted this link (I looked; didn't see it), mods please delete.
March 30th, 2013 at 12:52 PM ^
...similar angry (not joyous) couch fires will be raging in Columbus tonight. Doubtful, but maybe.
I have to disagree, a UM vs OSU championship game would be amazing and shut up all the B1G is overrated talking heads. I was actually pulling for MSU last night, because well fuck Duke is why.
Plus the fact that Duke or Louisville would be a lot tougher than Ohio. We know them a lot better and are playing a lot better right now than when we played them close the first two games.
Disagree. Aaron Craft is better at defending Burke than anyone else, and his ability to hold his own against Burke can really disrupt our offense. I don't want to play OSU for that reason alone. I'm willing to take our chances against Duke or Louisville.
Also, the knowledge thing cuts both ways. OSU sees us twice a year so they're familiar with a lot of what we do. Our non-conference opponents (whom we are 16-0 against) aren't.
Alums excepted, people who cheer for Duke are the same kind of people who cheer for the Yankees / Red Sox without any obvious geographical ties.
When did the Red Sox get lumped into the same bucket as the Yankees here? They've won 2 World Series in the past 90+ years, so people wouldn't exactly have an incentive to root for them for consistently winning!
Fever Pitch and ESPN hype did it.
I don't think you can clump everyone that roots for Duke into that category.
Obviously there are a lot of people who root for teams (Yankees, Cowboys back in the day, 49ers when I was a kid, Red Wings, Bulls in the 90's, etc), because it is easier on the heart to root for teams that win. Fans who want someone to root for, but don't want to go through the grieving process year after year.
You can't claim that everyone who cheers falls into that category. I tend to root for Duke more than others because of Coach K. Of all the reports that I have ever read, he seems to be pretty upright in his coaching responsibilities, and his work with the V Foundation earns him a little more of my respect. I will root for Duke all day long against coaches like Pitino or Calipari, guys that I just don't like. This doesn't mean that I root for Duke every year (I was rooting for Butler to beat them a few years ago).
What I am trying to say, is making such a sweeping generalization really minimizes some of the legitimate reasons a person might root for them.
Just because you don't like Duke, doesn't mean others don't have their reasons.
(neg away)
What if you feel forced to sort of root for Duke because UNC fans are so damn annoying and my B-I-L is a UNC without any geographical ties.
I rooted for Big Ten teams in the first weekend, but after that I don't really care how the rest of the league does. I was fine with MSU losing yesterday and would enjoy Wichita taking down OSU. It'd be awesome for Michigan to carry the banner of the Big Ten alone in the Final Four.
March 30th, 2013 at 12:54 PM ^
There was a time when I think they regretted their actions in the morning. I think it is more like badge of honor status now. Go figure.
That's the most frustrating kind of fan in any sport. They care more about the fortunes of their rivals than their own team. Where's the fun in that?
for always looking for riots after a MSU loss, MSU goes and lives out their stereotype. I almost feel like there must be Michigan fans out there trolling because are MSU fans really that stupid? (...I know the answer to that question)
South U was crawling with cops last night in case our win prompted us to do the same for some reason. At least five cruisers at Church and State alone.
did some good last night. I saw 4 fights or beginngings of brawls going on (1:30am) from the corner of South U and East U all the way to South U and South Forest. The cops seemed to be appropriately handling the situation for once. I will also note that there seemed to be a lot of ppl from out of town that came to AA as soon as we won (not surprising), so the cops did serve and protect.
At one bar I actually had the bouncer come around and ask to see everyone's MCard. If you couldn't produce a MCard or an ID with an AA address, they were throwing you out. I guess a lot of the out of town folks were making trouble. Makes sense the cops reacted since it was the bus loads of out of towners who caused last year's Saint Patrick's riot.
The farther the team goes, the more this will happen.
Must be all those Walmart Wolverines I'm always hearing about.
Mind me asking which bar that was? Odd, didn't notice that happening at Charley's. A buddy and I actually went to Lexington last year for the natl championship game, and it was a great time. We were there just for a good old fashioned riot. It lived up to expectations.
Are they allowed to even do that?
Can someone explain this to me? I mean, how did this get started? This is like if Buckeyes started shitting in coolers after losses. It just seems like something you would avoid, if for no other reason, because folks mock you for it.
Once something is recongizable it survives because it conveys the message with just one or two pictures. You see someone chained to a tree and you normally guess what they're unhappy about. You see a couch burning and you know something major happened with MSU basketball, etc. The fact it is easily recongizable always trumps the "we look stupid as hell" value of it with some people. Someone was drunk, had near zero critical thinking skills, and wanted to express feelings about MSU basketball, so there goes the couch because it was the only act they could think of. Or so my social science electives taught me. Any real sociologists here?
I seem to recall that, after their Final Four loss to - oddly enough - Duke, there was a sizeable disturbance which involved quite a bit of upholstery immolation, so as it relates to hoops anyway, it is at least that old, or at least, it has been nationally famous at least that long.
In any case, each chair or sofa is just that much more HCN gas, CO and ammonia in the air thanks to the polyurethane foam and flame retardants in modern furniture. They are literally only hurting themselves when they do this.
upholstery immmolationDefinitely t-shirt material.
The practice of burning couches after losses in football at sparty goes back to the 80s.
Apparently, relations between the ELPD and MSU students are not good. The more the ELPD urges students to settle down, the more they seem egged on to do dumb, violent things.
Some people complain about the AAPD, but on the whole I've found them to be pretty reasonable.
What happens in Columbus, stays in Columbus.
iQueme los sofas!
I just think it's hilarious that some "bro" is gunna wake up today and be really pissed he doesn't have anywhere to sit and watch today's games because he really just wanted to see some upholstery go up in flames. What a moron.
Thinking free admittance to the spring game with a couch dropped off in East Lansing!
Is there a Sofa King in East Lansing? Could be a good drop spot!!!
Sofa King We Todd Ed
You have to admire their fortitude....
Sparty gonna Spart
I often think of dropping off couches, lighter fluid and matches on game day in East Lansing to just make sure they have enough material to get the party started!
Most Sparties that I know are appalled by these types of things, and think (probably correctly) that it makes Sparty a laughingstock. But there is a hard-core element at MSU who carry this on. Not having been anywhere near MSU in a dozen years, I am in no position to judge, but ten years ago the couch burning had a political potency that I actually admired.
I was in college at Michigan during the first MSU riots, and having been in East Lansing on many occasions for several years leading up to that, I actually found there to be some legitimacy to the actions, which were pre-planned riots rather than the spotaneous 'mob violence' the media made it appear to be. The East Lansing police were the most aggressive police force I had ever seen, or have seen since, in fifteen or so campuses accross the United States and abroad. Officers would subject students to random searches on weekends. This happened to me once. Two officers tried to search a group of us, and I was like, have constitutional rights been suspended in East Lansing? I got the 'stop and frisk' for speaking up. No tickets or citations, this was pure intimidation, but never have I seen police force as confrontational or mean spirited.
Anecdotally I have heard that the police-student relations actually improved after the riots, so maybe these are exactly the gratuitiously cretinous events that they are portrayed to be. Or maybe this is a ritual paying homage to the 1999 riots. In any event, I doubt that its coincidental that when Sparty students get to Spartying, they burn couches. There is a symbolism to it, and it's not all bad, in my view, at least insofar as the pushing back against an East Lansing Police State is concerned. (Even though couch-burning predates the 1999 riots, couch-burning was one of the enduring symbols of the 1999 riots.)
In any event, I'm really happy for today's students to feel some of the excitement we felt many moons ago. It's the way it should be at Michigan.
March 31st, 2013 at 12:21 AM ^
the sofa is from which they were created... GO STAEE!
The police were ready for them and they still burned couches. I guess I should admire their pluck and motivation. Too bad they can't use it for something constructive.
The article mentions sparty-couch burnings going back to at least 1999. Actually the origin of sparty-couch burning goes much farther back than 99. I witnessed a large one sitting on the hill above Cedar Village laughing after CMU beat sparty at home in football...circa 1991.
out loud. Now I can't get that song out of my head though.