Reports on this are ambiguous, as are reports about why the traditional University of South Alabama cheer – SOUTH IN YA MOUTH – has been ruled out of bounds.
The decision was made by South Alabama Director of Athletics Dr. Joel Erdmann, who cited University’s intent to move away from a potentially politically incorrect statement.
Sexually incorrect it may be; but UD doesn’t see any political problem with it.
Students plan to resist. “You can’t truly ban it if it’s something we want to chant,” says one.
September 28th, 2010 at 11:17AM
Well, given that we’re dealing with Alabama, the chant comes perilously close to solicitation to commit a criminal act. The university administration is just doing its best to stop students from embarking on a life of crime.
I’m trying to include links to the relevant sections of the Alabama code on
conspiracy, sexual misconduct, and deviate sexual contact.
September 28th, 2010 at 11:49AM
Oh dear, we’ve shown up on UD two months in a row! I knew when the administration and board of directors shoved a football team down our throat a couple of years ago that this would happen eventually, but I didn’t expect it so soon.
This reminds me that the University of Alabama (the main one, in Tuscaloosa) tried unsuccessfully to ban their favorite cheer, “Rammer, jammer, yellowhammer, give’em hell, Alabama!” Presumably the problem was the reference to hell, but I always thought it nice that most Alabamians knew their state flower.
September 28th, 2010 at 2:40PM
Thank God they have an administration that focuses relentlessly on big issues, such as vaguely dirty chants. Now they can turn to other pressing ones, such as co-ed cleavage exposure and lining up the chalk in the blackboard trays neatly.
September 28th, 2010 at 4:48PM
Be kind, Prof. Stone. We Alabamians still take umbrage at phrases like “Given that we’re dealing with Alabama . . . .” — even when we deserve it.
Alas, my fair home state likely still has on its books as illegal or lewd many behaviors and gestures that are now commonplace and welcome in modern, liberal society. At least the code is slightly less medieval than the Alabama state constitution, which at 357,000 words is the longest foundational legal document in the world. (Three times as long as the nation of India’s!) And much of it completely backwards. Very few other foundational documents explicitly address prostitution, bingo, mosquito control, exhumation, probate judge salaries, boll weevils, and proper methods for annexing foreign territory; we like to make sure it’s all covered in Alabama.
The best part — it’s been amended so many times and in such Kafkaesque fashion that they actually skipped an amendment. No Amendment 621, just an empty space between 620 and 622.