I Bury Those Cockroaches

Often, when one walks about, taking in what Walt Whitman calls “the unspeakably perfect miracle” of a beautiful day, one fails to consider the cockroaches living in the cracks of the Earth where the sun chooses to not shine. On this day, I have decided to think of the creatures which occupy the rung beneath creepy crawling cockroaches: UM fans.

I will not argue the merits of which team is better presently, because, when a team is number one, no other team is better. That’s how being number one works. Nor will I get into which team was better, because, who cares what either team did more than a decade ago? New rule for this blog: You cannot reference what your team did if, when they did it, you were not legally allowed to consume alcohol and own a handgun (which, btw, might be the single greatest day of licensing that a boy could ever want to celebrate and the two most fun privileges to exercise simultaneously). Now, to be clear, I am not conceding any arguments of which team is better, it’s just that this is not about the Hurricanes football team, it’s about a particular set of their fans, and certain truths about them.


This much is true: UM fans suck. They do, it’s true. And it’s not just the opinion of Gator fans. Ask a resident of any college town that has actually played host to UM fans (when UM fans actually travel to watch their team) and they’ll tell you one of two things: First, UM fans are classless scumfuck cumbags. Second, that they’re annoying, rude, and hubristic. Now, in truth, being annoying, rude, and hubristic is not unlike every other college football fan out there. Gator fans can be annoying when they wax lyrical about the seemingly-endless upward-trending state of their beloved Gator football team. Gator fans can also be rude when they savor the sweet schadenfreude (See Jota’s text-message onslaught after any Hurricanes loss) served up by another team’s loss. Hubristic? Gator fans? Indeed, though that may have less to do with football and more to do with outside metrics, such as smoke-show ratios, brain volume, and cock length.

Now, there are some UM fans who are not only annoying, rude, and hubristic, but are much, much more. The kind of UM fan about which I spew is called the “U-Fraud”. You know him. The U-Fraud is the guy who went to another university but yet cheers for UM. You’ve seen ‘em: the ones proclaiming that “it’s all about the U” while hanging out the side of their souped up ’98 mint green Honda Accord sitting on twenty-twen twens with no fewer than six FIU or MDC parking decals layered on the rear window. You know the ones who say that they’ve got that swag, bro. ‘Swag’. No, guy, what you have is gonorrhea, an upside down subprime mortgage, and the most misplaced sense of fan loyalty in the competitive sports universe. Such fans should be bound, gagged, and flung from rapidly moving vehicles.

Naturally, the human inclination is always to ask why. Why would a person cheer for the enemy? Usually, people give their allegiance according to their ideology (e.g. the American citizenry subscribes to democratic, capitalistic ideals, or at least up until recently) or to their greed (e.g. mercenaries who would kill and die for highest bidder). Such is not the case here. Here, the U-Fraud bases his allegiance according to that which he saw as a kid. Ask any Fraud why they cheer for UM and the answer is invariably the same: “Bro, because I grew up going to the OB and watching da U deeeestroy the Big East back in the day, dog.” The reasoning is plainly weak: because I did it as a child, I must do it as an adult. That logic is a surefire way to remain a moron for life.

There are particularly three types of UM fans which peeve me the most. I’ll first address the the U-Fraud who goes to Miami-Dade College but cheers for UM. This type of U-Fraud gets the most understanding from me, in large part because MDC does not have a football team, so it makes some sense to cheer for the school situated closest to you with a football team. But, therein lies the rub: FIU is the closest school with a football team. Granted, FIU’s program is young and impressively unsuccessful-- and I will get into more of this below-- but it’s still a lot easier to cheer for them than for a team which plays far enough to necessitate a full tank of gas.

The MDC U-Fraud fan is generally either a criminal, a drug-addict, a stripper (which, let’s face it, in a recession, every stripper’s a hooker), or, what’s infinitely worse, from Kendall. Most of these fans are not very bright and, as such, shouldn’t be given too much shit about their silly decisions. It’s like punching a puppy for shitting on the carpet-- it’s fun, illegal, and sadistically satisfying, but it’s probably best to just pat it on the head and say, in your best dumbed-down baby voice, “it’s ok, you silly bitch”. Basically, in the words of the only bigger cocktease than Timbow, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The next U-Fraud that I’ll address is the guy who goes to FIU but is a die-hard UM fan. To this U-Fraud I used to give more leeway, but no longer. FIU now has a football team which plays on campus so there’s no reason why any FIU student should cheer for another school. UM is located in posh Coral Gables and not in Miami. UM’s players and fans must travel over 30 miles away from their campus to watch their team play a “home game” in the breath life-taking city of Miami Gardens. We all know that this wasn’t always the case, UM used to play in the historic Orange Bowl. But, even though it’s all about the U, UM cannot raise a red cent from its alumni or U-Frauds to build a stadium, and it is therefore forced to play its games in LandShark Stadium, which is closer to Ft. Lauderdale than it is to Miami or Coral Gables. Aside from how geographically asinine is it to go to FIU and cheer for another university, it is also quite Uncle/Tio Tom/Tomas-ish too.

It’s a bold statement, I know. But it’s important to set the context, so let’s examine FIU’s makeup. FIU is a commuter school, the 15th largest in the country, 4th in Florida, and boasts one the most diverse student bodies in the country. The undergraduate tuition for an in-state student is about $4,500.00 a year, and about three times that amount for an out-of-state student. FIU has an on-campus football stadium, the only university south of Orlando to have one. The student body is 59% Hispanic (any race, including Mexicans like Ol’ Bill), 12% African American, and 17% White (non-Hispanic, like Ol’ Bill’s other half). UM, by comparison, is a rich white kids’ school, costing about $35,500 in annual tuition to call oneself a Hurricane and not be a U-Fraud. The student body is more than 55% White (read: Northeast trash), less than 28% Hispanic, and less than 10% African-American.

Ironically, FIU’s student body represents a cross-section of the fans who populate the stands at UM games, while UM’s student body represents the cross-section of a southern university at the inception of integration. If again you feel that natural human inclination to ask why, that’s good, you must be a Gator. Why would a low-to-middle income minority student who attends a public school cheer for a rich white kid’s private school football team? I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t. I can hazard a guess though: FIU U-Frauds, rather than admit they’re wrong, would rather justify their position with the same flawed reasoning that I mentioned above. That is-- because I did it as a kid, I should do it as an adult. The sheer ridiculousness of this allegiance is even more pronounced when the person doing the cheering is a minority. It’s tantamount to a black student who attends an inner city high school cheering for the rich white kids’ private high school, a school which that kid would never be accepted nor afford. Like a black or Hispanic kid from Edison cheering for Gulliver, it’s absurd and pathetic and laughable and saddening and merits ridicule.

Now, we come to the all-time, all-universe worst type of U-Fraud: the one who went to the great University of Florida and cheers for UM. This is the lowest form of life and is hard to understand when one is a high-order reasoning being like a Gator fan, which if you're reading this post, you're probably one. To get a better idea of who and what this ameoba shitbag-fan is like, use your imagination.

Picture this: You’re a high school student in Miami. You apply to UF, FSU, UCF, FIU, USF, and UM. You get in to every school. You’re thrilled. You choose UF because it’s a more prestigious institution than the other schools to which you applied and, possibly more importantly, it’s reasonably priced as the state of Florida prides itself as having the cheapest university tuition in the country. You move to Gainesville during Summer B session. You are exposed to one of the largest collections of young, supple flesh on Earth. You have a blast. You meet people from different area codes. Your little provincial Miami mind is expanded. Then fall rolls around. Everyone is now in school. The city’s population has quadrupled. You now live in a place where the weather responds to the Earth’s axial tilt. Campus is abuzz with excitement. It’s Friday and you’re heading to the Porpoise, or some other bar where they allow children to drink. You buy 10 pitchers for $4 but leave $5 because you’re a heavy tipper. You drink, dance, drink, repeat. Then you head to an after-party. You do more of the drinking thing and bed some girl who has been old enough to drive a car for two years. Life’s great. Welcome to Gainesville. Now, it’s Saturday. Gameday. The weather is beautiful and everyone is bedecked in Gator garb. The streets are festooned in Orange and Blue. People are smiling because the Gators are playing their first home game of the season. There are gameday parties everywhere. Kegs flow. Fans chant. And you? You stay at home and watch a UM game.

Again, why? How could one choose to align themselves with a team whose greatest accomplishments were made when the USSR was around and hairy pussy was in? How could one choose to live in Gainesville, a shining city on a hill long before Romulus and Remus were sucking on wolf tits, and yet stay home on a game day... to watch UM? The answer is because they’re bad people. The actions of bad people are inexplicable to the minds of good people. Luckily, no such good people read this blog, so we should be fine in figuring this out.

I think it is important to note that while these U-Frauds probably remain faithful to UM for the same reason that U-Frauds from FIU and MDC do, which is that they’re too stubborn to admit that their childhood loyalty is misplaced, they seem to do it out of spite for their Gator classmates. I don’t really know why they’d shine on their own people, but then again, I don’t think like a dumbshit U-Fraud. I think it’s a silly, un-admirable obstinacy to hold the line because of fear of admitting one is wrong (cf. Gulf War 2). We all have a friend or two like this.

I think the worst part of being this kind of U-Fraud is that they cannot enjoy Gainesville after they’ve graduated. Think about it. One of the best parts about having gone to UF is going back to Gainesville or other places not only to watch the Gators play, but also to catch up with old friends. U-Frauds from UF do not do this. They stay home and do not head to Gainesville on whatever big game weekend that every other UF alumnus goes. I find this inexcusably ridiculous and untenable. Granted, there are those-- and I know one in particular whose name is an acronym of the word “blowjob”-- who cheer for UM and UF, which is also silly. But, at least they enjoy Gainesville when their fellow alumni do.

So, what are we to do with these U-Frauds? It’s like dealing with a family member with an addiction. Does one “hate the sin, and not the sinner”, as the Evangelicals say? I don’t know how to handle this. But, I can hazard a guess: They should have a party in the Swamp so that the over 95,000 screaming, Gator fan mob can watch as these non-believer U-Frauds are fed to a pit of starved, prehistoric-sized gators.

Go Ready the Pit
Go Gators.