[JRutledge]

Booing is not a personal insult. It is showing displeasure for an event or series of events. I have no problem if fans (which can be students, parents, alumni and townies) booing me as an official or even a player. I do have a problem if there is a chant about someone personally where there is something about their condition or family member. I do not expect a school to have total control over the collective behavior of fans as it relates to booing. I do expect something to be done with chants and things that can be insightful to an individual or a crowd. I know when I worked my games this past week many insults were thrown at me. Now I can handle that personally and I know it comes with the territory. I have no problem with getting rid of people that get out of line, but you are not going to stop collectively thousands for comments. Even when I have attended the Big Ten Tournament, is extremely rare you hear any comments that are vulgar and completely inappropriate. I remember a few years ago when the tournament was in Indy, and I was sitting in the Iowa section for the championship game. There was a guy using profanity while yelling at the referees. A couple of guys turned around and told the guy to knock it off and the guy stopped completely. I was amazed how cooperative this guy was to the request of fans. There was also security available if there was anything that got out of hand. You do not need a policy like this to encourage good behavior. You just need to get rid of the clowns that think they can say anything without penalty.

Peace