How about we make a trade for streamers? Much better tradition, much less offensive, and maybe it'll get students to the game on time, which in fact is much more of a problem than any number of people shouting "You suck!" in unison.

[QUOTE id="808406aa-3949-43a8-b05c-e44b6547812f"] The only people who really cared about the song were smug Penn kids who thought they were cool singing it.[/QUOTE] They're almost as bad as the condescending Penn kids who think they're cooler than everyone else.

First to address the comment about "the type of student who sings this song": Season ticket holders and student fans are not smug people. We come from diverse backgrounds and we just have extreme passion for Penn basketball. This is just something we do to have fun. My real gripe with this change is the possibility that the student section might be deterred from an A capella performance. I think "You Suck" is pretty low on the offensive scale if you consider the things that can be said or have been said by individual fans at these games. Why not let us have our fun? We've already dished about a hundred dollars to go to these games. Some people who don't even like sports come out to support Penn and find these weird vulgar rituals entertaining. Where do you draw the line for the student section? Are we not allowed to yell "Suck" after the announcer calls out an opponent's name during intros, are we not allowed to sing "so tonight let's all 'get laid' " during Drink a Highball (instead of "let's all be gay"), and I guess we're definitely not allowed to sing "No, F*%$ you" during the Field Cry song (instead "Any ice today lady-No. Gitty-up?"). - For the kids I apologize. I suggest to invest some ear muffs.

Every year I go to the Yale/Penn game on New Haven and the Yale fans have their own insulting chant which fills up the arena with energy and it makes a great game. It's bad enough you can't drink at a football game any longer but this is just too goody-too-shoes for words.

[QUOTE id="220c42fd-7bc7-4008-bd1c-65943de2c698"]Every year I go to the Yale/Penn game on New Haven and the Yale fans have their own insulting chant which fills up the arena with energy and it makes a great game. It's bad enough you can't drink at a football game any longer but this is just too goody-too-shoes for words.[/AAQUOTE] I completely agree with you. At pretty much every college, the fans have insulting chants. And a lot of them do the same one we do. I'm all for respectful speech, but its not like we're telling each individual player on the other team, "hey, you are really just an awful human being and you'd really be better off if you just died. And you're bad at basketball too." The chant isn't a personal attack on the character or personality of the individuals, nor is it the kind of attack that would fall into the same category as homophobia or racism which target groups of people. It is a way for us to show our support for Penn. We all rally behind our Penn Quakers when they're winning and say to the opponent, "hey, we're totally going to beat you. you suck at basketball." We also do it when they're losing, which is more along the lines of, "Hey, you're kicking our asses. No one kicks our asses and gets away with it without hearing our thoughts on the matter. So, you suck! Ha! How d'ya like them apples. I think we made our point." If we win, I don't think the other team's loss is going to be made worse because they know we think they aren't good. And if we lose, I *really* dont think the other team's win is going to be less sweet because they felt hurt by the fans' comments.

A few blocks north, the band stopped playing that song at Drexel games earlier this year. I didn't really have an opinion about it one way or another. At some point all of the songs/cheers that use the words "YOU SUCK!" all fall in together and it becomes indistinguishable. Besides, it's not like we don't have 5 more things that use those words; for instance, "Delaware..." or for you guys "Princeton..." or when we play each other "Penn..."

Where was Penn when Harvard won the NCAA hockey title a few years back? Were the Penn fans throwing streamers when they played?

The sad thing is not the song, but that apparently today's Penn student (Dave Anderson being the quoted example) seems to get off shouting "you suck" at a basketball game. Are today's students so socially inept that that is actually something that gets them off? What is also sad is that our students aren't creative enough to think of one of a thousand other cheers that could be fun, loud, and derisive to the other team while not necessarily being vulgar. Or at the very least, throw in some smart chants so no one focuses on the one vulgar one. But when the students are so poorly organized, the rollouts are just horrible, and there are no other chants to talk about, that's the biggest shame here. Judging by the responses here from students, it seems like it is today's Penn students themselves that truly suck.

This is just ridiculous. If "you suck" is only problem with the song, how about just banning kids from saying that one line, and let a fun Penn tradition continue.

Penn students should demonstrate their intelligence by being more clever than blunt. Way back when I was an undergrad in the College, we had buttons for big games--one that comes to mind for a large Princeton football game was "The Tiger has mini-paws." That is clever; more clever than Princeton sucks. Think New Yorker; not Mad Magazine. What are you? Drexel wannabees? Alum College '72

I thought Penn already banned this song last year when it came to light that the guy who wrote it, Gary Glitter, is a pederast . . .

It's not the song that's the problem. It's singing it when you're down by 40 to the Hawks - or when Harvard threatens to win for the first time in 25 years.

It's basically the most interactive thing that the fans do all game, senior Dave Anderson said. No, THAT's the problem.

The word is "interactive" not "active", and the subject is "fans" not "players". The "activity" seems to be coming with the fists, judging from the Harvard incident and the end of the Princeton game.

In our continuing efforts to be more like BYU, I propose the band should also lead the students in a prayer for the other team before the games. Also, in order to maintain proper decorum, each fan is encouraged to raise his or her hand and wait to be called on before cheering. Another good job done be the athletic department to get students excited about basketball. Keep it up guys.

Hey hey, my my Rock and roll (pt2) can never die

Thank God they're getting rid of this classless chant. The only people who really cared about the song were smug Penn kids who thought they were cool singing it... certainly not the opposing team or fans.

I do agree that the song is overused and can make our fanbase seem like poor sports or worse still, having a chip on their shoulder for years of being known as the sports Ivy instead of the academic power we currently are. I think a great compromise could be reached if the song is only sung at the Princeton game because, they in fact do suck!

...or maybe ban his music becuase he's a child molester and kiddie porn enthusiast. (From wikipedia) Gary Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd May 8, 1944) is an English rock and pop singer and songwriter who had a string of chart successes with a collection of 1970s glam rock hits including "Rock and Roll parts 1 & 2", "I Love You Love Me Love", "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)" and "Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again". He is currently in jail until August 2008[1] in Vietnam for child sexual abuse. Glitter first came to prominence in the glam rock era of the early 1970s. He had one of the longest chart runs of any solo singer in the UK during the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1995 Glitter charted no fewer than 25 hit singles which spent a grand total of 179 weeks in the UK Top 100.[2] His success as a live performer lasted well beyond the decade. He continued to record in the 1980s and 1990s, with his 1984 song "Another Rock N' Roll Christmas" being one of the Top 30 Christmas hits of all time.[3] He released seven studio albums, and at least 15 greatest hits collections or live albums. In 1998, his recording of "Rock and Roll" was voted as one of the Top 1001 songs in music history.[4] In 1999, Glitter was convicted for downloading 4,000 child pornography pictures in the UK, and was afterwards listed as a sex offender.[5] His reputation was greatly tarnished, and though he continued releasing new music, Glitter's popularity declined sharply. He was permanently evicted from Cambodia in 2002 for suspected child sexual abuse offences.[6] He afterwards relocated to V?ng Tˆu in Vietnam, and in March 2005 applied for permanent resident status.[7] Later that year, he was arrested by Vietnamese authorities while trying to leave the country, and he was tried and convicted of child sexual abuse charges in 2005-06. Glitter's release date is August 2008 though in April 2007 his lawyer announced that he was appealing for a second time against the length of his sentence (having had it cut by 3 months in the first appeal[8]).

Hey, if that's all they yell, they should be lucky. The garbage students at Wisconsin take the "Hey You Suck" thing one step further, adding "we're gonna beat the s**t out of you, you, you, you you you" to the beat of the song. The refs (any sport) don't have the stones to call a penalty or a T on the crowd for this, and I'm ashamed to sit in the same building when they do it. Hope I didn't give another school any ideas.

How ridiculous, plus this is ripped off from the University of Wisconsin, but we add a "and were going to knock the shit out of you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you." at the end of the refrain.

Don't know if this has been said, but welcome to 2003 Penn. The Terps (UMD) were doing this for a long time but in 03-04 it was "banned" the students still hum and chant it in unison however.

First of all, Penn State started it oh so many years ago. So if anybody's being ripped off, it's them. Second, that little extra "beat the shit" part is done at Virginia Tech, and so I'm sure other schools as well. Stop taking credit for shit that's not yours. [QUOTE id="b954bb5b-2b97-4df9-9390-655026f30c3f"]How ridiculous, plus this is ripped off from the University of Wisconsin, but we add a "and were going to knock the shit out of you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you." at the end of the refrain.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE id="022956da-6f4f-40cf-a6b0-c3e5492fb7cd"]It's not the song that's the problem. It's singing it when you're down by 40 to the Hawks - or when Harvard threatens to win for the first time in 25 years.[/QUOTE] FOR SOME REASON, I Feel As if you guys got this song from University of Maryland... we've been singing this song for years now......