Ahh, March Madness. It’s a wonderful time of year when we can focus on college athletes competing at the highest level, and can enjoy their spirited fans as well.

There’s nothing like a college crowd to come up with clever ways to get under an opponent’s skin. Even simple stuff like yelling the guy’s name every time he touches the ball can add great enjoyment for fans at any game. Having never been that athlete, I can’t say for sure how it affects them.

I am pretty sure, however, that it doesn’t scar them for life and is within the spirit of the game. A Wisconsin school district thinks even those simple taunts–including “airball,” “over-rated” and “what’s the score?”–are too much for kids to take. Those extremely hurtful attacks are now banned.

Good thing the administrators are protecting those kids. I wonder what sort of things are said in the hallways of those schools. “Hello sir, how did you enjoy today’s math test?” “My your sweater and jeans combination is simply strapping today!” “Sir I respectfully disagree with your assessment that Britney Spears is an upstanding citizen!”

Give me a break. This is the latest in over-reactions to benign actions of fans that don’t bother players two seconds after they are said.

It brings to mind a string of incidents at Susquehanna basketball games when I covered our men’s basketball team. A few of our fans yelled out a guy’s name whenever he got the ball, or when they committed a turnover said “Hey, we worked on that in practice!” I bet the players were just fine after those incredibly hurtful taunts.

But our athletic director had campus security go sit with the five or six guys and eventually they were asked to leave. Here’s an editorial I wrote back in Dec. 2004.

The best part of that article was the day after it was published. We had a home game, and I was seated just behind the sports information director who was keeping score of the game. He had the paper on the desk as well, open to my editorial. During halftime, the athletic director came over to the SID. She picked up the paper and looked at it like it was completely made up and out of nowhere.

Even better, I was still sitting three feet away. We had spoken on the phone during my time as the sports editor, but I’m fairly certain we had never spoken in person. So as she questioned my premise, I was able to hear all of her comments with complete anonymity. After she left, the SID turned around and I commended him on his ability to keep a straight face knowing exactly what was going on. Good times.