"The Very Concept of Booing Needs To Be Reevaluated"

Huh? No, this is not a joke. Washington Interscholastic officials are actually considering the possibility of outlawing booing at sporting events. If this catches on, we'll soon be having to replace "Yankees Suck" with "Yankees Not As Good As We Are." It doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Life in the Mean Seats
By JOE QUEENAN

IN one of the most depressing pieces of news to come along in years, the organization that presides over high school sports in Washington State is considering a ban on booing at sporting events. That’s right, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is evaluating guidelines for fan behavior that would not only prohibit offensive chants but would also outlaw booing.

The organization is contemplating this measure not just because of concern that fan negativity is discouraging people from taking jobs as referees and coaches, but because, in the words of Mike Colbrese, the association’s executive director, the very concept of booing needs to be re-evaluated.

“I don’t know why people think it’s acceptable to boo in the first place,” Mr. Colbrese told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer earlier this month. “It’s a pretty novel concept to me.”

As a native of Philadelphia, a municipality whose passion for booing is unrivaled, I greet this news with a mixture of revulsion and dread. Philadelphia, coyly nicknamed the City of Brotherly Love, has a place in the national mythology as a city whose fans once booed Santa Claus at a Philadelphia Eagles game, a city where locals sometimes boo unsatisfactory airplane landings . . .

read the rest.