I have to agree with Steve on this one.  While I am a Spartan, I did grow up
near Ann Arbor and went to many events _and cheered for Michigan_.  Also, I worked at
Michigan for three years (from 1990-1993) and had season hockey tickets.  However, that
was about the time that UM was just starting their ascent and the fans were hockey fans
primarily.  Michigan _still_ has good hockey fans; I know because I usually sit with
them when I go to Yost.  I also have no problem with the cheers, and will grudgingly
admit that UM's got the best all-around hockey pep band I've ever seen (-:  Yost is
still a reasonably pleasant place to watch hockey.
        What really annoys me (as may be obvious by the length of this) is the
increasing number of 'johnny-come-lately' fans that find it necessary to immediately
harass anyone not wearing maize and blue.  And sometimes, people who actually are!  I
had a couple of 'bad' UM fans enter Joe Louis behind me and start making rude comments
about MSU because I wear a State Starter jacket.  What they didn't bother to notice was
that my Michigan jersey was hanging out the bottom!!!  And to make it worse, it was GLI
and UM/MSU weren't even playing each other that day.  I also didn't appreciate the group
of 'bad' Michigan fans sitting in front of us at the OSU/UM game at the Fairgrounds who
yelled rude comments to us (the fans) when we were behind and chanted "we're still
champions" when OSU was ahead.  The irony was that, when asked, it turned out that only
one of their group had been in Cincinnati, and _seven_ of us had---cheering for
Michigan!  It's the prejudging and assumption that 'if ya ain't fer us, ya must be
agin us' that drives me nuts <rant over-I feel better now>
        I do, however, agree that there are definitely some in every crowd.  My family
and friends, wearing Spartan regalia, were insulted by an _usher_ at Munn for cheering
for Michigan at the West Regionals last year.  Maybe it just seems that Michigan has
more 'bad' fans than other schools because they have so many fans in the first place.
Maybe it's because the hockey team is doing well and the basketball and football teams
aren't, so the obnoxious people who just want to follow a winner are showing up en masse
and detracting from the real hockey fans.  I don't know, but we're not going to solve
the problem of anybody's bad fans anytime soon---there will always be some, and they
will offend others, who may then become bad fans and offend others, and so on...
 
Jennifer
 
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