David Michael Miller
“Air ball.” “Fundamentals.” “We can’t hear you.” “Season’s over.”
Examples of harmless fan passion at a high school basketball game? Or taunting, distracting chants that have no place in a gymnasium?
That was the debate that flared up in Wisconsin in January after the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association — the organization that oversees high school sports in the state — emailed a letter to administrators suggesting that supervisors monitor negative chants.
The letter states, in part, that “any action directed at opposing teams or their spectators with the intent to taunt, disrespect, distract or entice an unsporting behavior in response is not acceptable sportsmanship.” It also notes that the WIAA does not want to “restrict creativity or enjoyment, an enthusiastic and boisterous display of support for a school’s team.” But specific examples of offensive chants were cited, including “You can’t do that,” “fundamentals,” “air ball,” “there’s a net there,” “sieve” and “we can’t hear you.”
But the WIAA letter didn’t catch the attention of the general public until April Gehl, a basketball player at Hilbert High School, tweeted “Eat shit WIAA” on her personal Twitter account, and a WIAA official brought the tweet to the attention of Hilbert school administrators. Gehl was suspended for five games; she returned to play on Jan. 25.
That suspension ignited the critical attention of national media. The WIAA was blasted and taunted by many, from Stephen Colbert on The Late Show to The New York Times and USA Today.
One of these critics was ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas, a lawyer who often takes to Twitter to offer unfiltered opinions on sports-related topics. One of Bilas’ tweets shared a black-and-white photo of nuns watching a game in a reserved manner, with the message “Under the new rules, a crowd behaving in an acceptable fashion at a Wisconsin high school basketball game.”
Bilas, once a standout basketball player at Duke, says in an interview with Isthmus that he was definitely laughing at, and not with, the WIAA with his commentary.
While some have dinged the WIAA for violating fans’ free speech rights, Bilas doesn’t go that far. “I don’t see that there are any First Amendment implications here as far as the WIAA doing anything illegal or improper,” Bilas says of the December email. “I think it’s more a question of taking things a little too far.”
Bilas, who spent time in the stands as a spectator when his son Anthony played prep basketball, thinks that “the idea that our kids are made of porcelain or something and [if] somebody yells ‘air ball’ after they miss the rim [they’ll] curl up in the fetal position and begin crying, that’s not the case.” And even if it were, he notes, “That’s not sportsmanship either.”
After Gehl’s tweet and suspension, WIAA officials clarified their stance with additional correspondence in late January that said the association had imposed no new rules or enforcement expectations.
While the furor over the WIAA’s email has since died down, the underlying issue — the lack of sportsmanship at games — is still a relevant one for area high schools.
On Jan. 5, during a basketball game between Madison West and Sun Prairie, a Sun Prairie player who’d been injured was taunted with personal attacks on West’s home court. And that’s different from “air ball.”
According to West athletic director Sandy Botham, one West player and one student fan received warnings and were told if the behavior occurred at future games, they’d face reprimands.
Botham has since addressed West fans about proper behavior. The question she poses to them: Do you want to be a crowd that’s considered classless, or do you want to be a classy crowd?
“I really came down hard on them,” Botham says. “The profanity is what has to stop, and we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. ‘Air ball’ and humorous lines that are clever, we’re going to let those go.”
During his 27 years as Madison Edgewood High School athletic director and basketball coach, Chris Zwettler has drawn up his own list of cheers he doesn’t allow. He feels the WIAA was sending a friendly reminder with its original correspondence and says that national pundits didn’t look at the big picture.
Zwettler says the intent of the WIAA letter was never to “kick kids out of the gym and the hockey rinks and the wrestling meets if they start chanting that stuff.” It was more of a preemptive move, he adds. “Schools are always trying to prevent something that may seem silly or innocent [from blowing] up into something big.”
Todd Clark, director of communications for the WIAA, turned down an interview request for this story. “To be clear,” Clark says in an email, “there have been no new mandates or guidelines issued by the WIAA.”