Now, it’s no surprise that the students at the University of Miami are the best at everything they attempt. From academics to athletics, Miami is among the top finishers in every category; U.S. News recently ranked Miami as 47 in the nation, shooting past FSU and UF.
This success is shown through the pride we have in our school, and you cannot go a single place on campus without seeing a swarm of kids rockin’ the orange and green.
The word sportsmanship has been brought up a lot to UM students, who only just started wearing the “USwag” or “Miami invented swag” shirts. It’s the way we win that needs to be worked on, and when I say we, I mean the fans.
After a game my sophomore year, I remember walking back to the buses from the stadium after a great win and seeing the other team’s band being mooned and taunted by a group of UM students. Funny? Hell yes. Should we be doing it? Probably not.
The one thing that seems to escape most students’ minds is that we represent our school when we have the word Miami written in bold letters across our chest. I can’t say I’m innocent of bragging about my school and talking some trash at football games, nor can I say I’m innocent of throwing a cup of beer at the back of a FSU fan’s head… but that’s another story. The point is that as fans, we need to make sure our celebration and antics don’t overshadow simply winning the game.
Sportsmanship is an important concept to understand. It means no booing the ref for an hour when he makes a bad call during a basketball game. It means no flicking the bird to a UNC fan as he walks from our stadium defeated. It means acting like a winner whether we win or not, and once we have this down, it’ll be that much harder for the other teams to swallow the loss gracefully.
Evan Peskin is a junior majoring in pre-med psychology. He may be contacted at epeskin@themiamihurricane.com.