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BY Ryan Hagen
For years, home team football fans have
been called the twelfh man, referring to how
much they help the team on the feld. Fans can
even help to change the outcome of the game if
they have a big enough impact on the visiting
team. Tis was especially evident in Saturday
afernoons game between the West Virginia
Mountaineers and the Maryland Terrapins.
West Virginia University fans of all
sports have been called many things. Nice and
friendly is not one of them. In basketball, Bobby
Huggins, their own basketball coach, has yelled
at fans for throwing things, onto the court,
and even a quarter at Pitts assistant coach. At
football games, chants of Eat sh*t Pitt erupt
among the students, even when the Pitt game is
months away.
Te Mountaineers season opening home game,
against Coastal Carolina, seemed to lack some-
thing. It was the fans. Yes, the stadium was full
of people for the frst game, but they were not
the same as they were on Saturday. Although
West Virginia put up 31 points to a scoreless
Coastal Carolina, the fans just didnt seem to be
into it.
It was a diferent story against the Terps. Mary-
land players and coaches had the pleasure of
exiting the tunnel to a roar of boos, as well as
explicit remarks and hand gestures. And that
was just the beginning.
All week in practice, Maryland coaches were
constantly reminding quarterback Jamarr
Robinson to yell loudly, as they knew noise was
going to be a huge factor. Tey even practiced
using silent counts, such as lifing a foot, or,
during the actual game for instance, frantically
waving his arms, however the center just didnt
snap the ball. He was simply unaware that he
was signaled.
It all began on their frst drive. Maryland simply
could not run a play, due to the excessive noise
from the fans. Tey committed three delay-of-
game penalties, a false start, and even had to
burn one of their timeouts. Which led to them
starting their drive backed up to their own
3-yard line.
Tis was all due to the fans, all 60,122 of them.
Te student section was wild, like it always is,
said Leeroy Jenkins, a sophomore who has been
to every home game since the beginning of last
season. Usually the students start to die down
around the end of the third quarter, but when
Maryland started to get back into the game, the
fans did too.
It might have been the nice weather that
brought out all the students. Also, Maryland
is pretty close, and there are a lot of kids from
there, so that might have added to it as well.
One Terps fan had the misfortune of sitting with
his friend in the student section. He proud-
ly wore his bright red, Maryland jersey, and
seemingly welcomed the verbal abuse from
the Mountaineer fans. Balled up Chick-fl-A
wrappers were thrown his way, as well as usu-
ally empty, but sometimes half full Zuls Frozen
Lemonade cups. One student went as far as
stating that he wished the Zuls spilled all over
his neck, and made it all sticky so tons of bees
would come and sting him.
Most of these items missed the Maryland fan,
and hit fellow West Virginia fans, including his
friend, who had brought him into the lions den
of a student section. Although these actions
might seem extreme, he did not try to stop it,
he even encouraged it. At one point, he turned
to the sea of blue and gold and asked if some-
one could throw some water his way, as he was
getting thirsty. He said this during a timeout,
The Twelfth Man
Stripe the Stadium at Milan Puskar Stadium
BY Ryan Hagen
Nothing but a cheap sleeping bag, and
the thin base of a tent separated students from
the frozen ground. Last January, Ten students
braved two days of snowstorms with up to 30
MPH winds for front row seats to a two-hour
basketball game. But this wasnt just any game.
Tis was possibly the last game, played in Mor-
gantown, of the century-old Backyard Brawl,
between the West Virginia Mountaineers and
the Pittsburgh Panthers.
Afer the recent switch to the Big 12
Conference, WVU sports are playing on a high-
er level than ever before, and fans will do any-
thing to be as close to the action
as possible.
Te Mountain-
eer Maniacs,
the largest
student
orga-
niza-
tion on campus, is giving students a way to do
just that. Te Maniacs have reinvented a point
system that was used a few years ago as a way
to get more students to attend the less popular
sporting events, such as mens and womens soc-
cer, and volleyball. For every event that students
attend, they get a point, and the top 25 students
with the most points at the end of the season
get early entry into the mens basketball games.
Without having to spend the night outside.
It just gives everyone the same chance to get
the early entry into the basketball games. No
one has an advantage, said Maniac board mem-
ber Dillon Tucker.
Even if someone is not in the top 25, there
is still an upside to attending the
smaller events. Te Ma-
niacs have partnered
with Qdoba to
help add a
little
more incentive into the mix. For every three
events, students receive a coupon for free chips
and queso, and coupons for free entrees afer
both six, and nine events, before the cycle starts
over again at 12.
Even with its success, the Maniacs still have a
few kinks to work out to perfect the new system.
One big change would be to add a second sign-
in table at the end of the games, to help prevent
students from showing up just to get the points
and Qdoba coupons, then leaving a few minutes
into the game.
Basically, we just have to promote it more says
Tucker, the soccer and volleyball teams work
just as hard as the football and bas-
ketball teams, and they deserve
the same support.
FANS cont. on page 2
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45 6578 97:"8
New Point System Reignites Student Section
Student tents camped outside the Coliseum for the WVU-Pitt Basketball game
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while most of the students were sitting. Howev-
er, his words caused the entire student section to
rise to their feet and start an asshole chant, as
bottles of water few from every direction. Tere
were no hard feelings though, at the end of the
game, as everyone was fling out of the stadium,
many Mountaineer fans told him it took a lot
of balls to sit there, and even gave him a pat on
the back.
Te other side of the stadium had a diferent
feel, not completely though. Te fans were
defnitely into it, but there wasnt too much
swearing. I was mostly surrounded by families,
said Jon Kimball, who drove nearly 13 hours
from New Hampshire for this game, and also
to visit his son, a student at West Virginia. It
was an intense game, and I think thats why the
fans were so intense. I wish I could have been
in the student section though, from where I was
sitting, it seemed like that was the place to be.
Girls were getting thrown into the air afer every
Mountaineer touchdown, kids were dancing, it
looked like a lot of fun.
Everyone was doing the frst down chant, and
high fving afer a good play. People were quite
when West Virginia was on ofense, and loud as
all hell when they were on defense. Tey know
how to cheer down here, its very diferent than
where Im from, where we only have Dartmouth
College, who gets maybe 300 fans on a good
day, Jon went on to say. Tese fans are great,
and yes, I do believe they afected the game. It
was so loud, I dont think anyone who was at the
game could say they didnt help out and do their
part.
Even on the walk to the stadium, from about a
mile away, everyone you see wears the Flying
WV with pride. Te streets are flled with peo-
ple of all ages. Parents with their children just
head for the stadium and the clothing stands
that surround it. Te older fans however, are
parked on the side of the road, music blasting
from car speakers, and open cases of beer in the
trunk. According to Jon, I didnt drink before
the game, but a lot of people defnitely did, he
chuckled to himself. It is just a football town,
theres not much more to say, they love their
football here, and that shows on game day.
Te opposing teams arent the only ones af-
fected by the fans however. Te Mountaineers
themselves seem to get more pumped up for the
game if there is a big fanbase at the game. As
the fans get into it, the players do too, they dont
want to let down 60,000 fans, especially on their
own feld.
It is clear that West Virginia fans know what
their role is on game day, and they play it well.
Te Mountaineers are 29-4 at home since the
2005 season, and their loyal fans have helped
them every step of the way.
FANS cont. from page 1
BY Ryan Hagen
Anyone who uses the Internet regularly
surely noticed the widespread online blackout
that took place on January 18th, 2012. Tis form
of protest, used by many popular websites such
as Google.com, Wikipedia.org, and Reddit.
com, was in response to the two major bills in
Congress at the time. Tese bills were the Stop
Online Piracy Act, and the Protect IP Act, or
SOPA and PIPA, respectively. Eduardo Porter
was one of the many people who were afected
by the public outcry against these bills. In his
New York Times editorial Te Perpetual War:
Pirates and Creators, Porter states that although
online piracy is a huge problem facing creative
industries, these bills are not the way to solve
it. Porter is able to justify his claim by not only
showing a solid understanding of the subject
itself, but by also connecting with his audience,
as well as sympathizing with them.
In the very frst paragraph, Porter not only
introduces the subject of the article, but also
starts building some credibility with his target
audience. He states, Te bill they favored was
fawed, and could have inhibited expression on
the Web (Porter). Tis helps him to create a
connection with the reader, as no one wants his
or her expression to be limited, especially on
the seemingly limitless Internet. Tis also helps
to put Porter on the side of the audience, by
showing his somewhat opposition to these bills
by calling them fawed. Towards the end of the
article, Porter even begins using we to help
solidify the connection to his target audience.
Te target audience for this article is not only
the typical, educated New York Times readers,
but also to anyone who uses the Internet, as this
issue afects everyone, whether they are involved
in illegal online piracy or not. Te article is
able to appeal to the audience by using a fairly
basic word choice. Tis helps Porter to avoid
alienating anyone by using any over the top, or
eccentric words. It also keeps the article from
sounding as if it is coming from someone above
the readers, as it does not come of as too pomp-
ous, or sounding like a lecture. Te paragraph
structure itself also comes into play, as Porter
uses short, succinct paragraphs, rather than one
long, rambling paragraph. By using this para-
graph structure, Porter is able to incorporate
many diferent supporting facts into the article
without it being overwhelming.
Porter displays a strong understanding of the
economic problems that online piracy is causing
on the entertainment industries, by giving many
diferent facts, covering everything from music
to movies to books. Although the author gets
into the specifcs of each major industry, the
frst statistic presented in the article is perhaps
one of the most important, Te use of peer-to-
peer and cyberlocker sites, most of it for illegal
sharing, amounts to over one-fourth of all Inter-
net trafc. And while that fraction is expected
to shrink as legal services expand, fle-sharing is
still expected to grow about 23 percent annually
until 2015. He is trying to show how big a prob-
lem illegal downloading truly is, adding, Te
Recording Industry Association of America says
that four out of fve digital music downloads are
illegal (Porter). Tis second statistic also gives
the article credibility, as he shows that his facts
are not some arbitrary numbers, but are based
on legitimate studies.
However, the very next paragraph goes on to say
that some studies used by the supporters of the
bills tend to exaggerate the true economic costs
of piracy, stating the somewhat obvious they
ofen omit the fact that money not spent on mu-
sic or movies is likely to be spent on something
else. Tis not only slightly discredits the argu-
ment, but also taps into the audiences values, as
everyone values money, and everyone spends
money on a daily basis.
Te frst main use of diferent facts is to show
the efect that online piracy has had on the
music industry. Tis begins with album sales,
which, including digital sales, fell from 755
million in 1999 to 458 million last year, ac-
cording to Nielsen SoundScan (Porter). Once
again, Porter mentions that this fact came from
a reputable source, with it being from Nielsen
SoundScan.
Porters next main statistic is about the movie
industry, specifcally box-ofce revenues, stating
that although box-ofce revenues have benefted
from higher ticket prices, they are still sufering
because movie attendance itself has been steadi-
ly declining. He goes on to share a statistic about
the award-winning flm Te Hurt Locker, stat-
ing that it had a worldwide box ofce of only
$49 million, but was downloaded illegally seven
million times, according to TorrentFreak, a Web
site about fle-sharing (Porter). Tis also gives
even more credibility to his argument, by reveal-
ing where he got the statistics. Te inclusion of
this movie is an attempt to evoke some sympa-
thy from the audience, as Te Hurt Locker
was a very popular, award-winning movie, how-
ever, I believe that it may have had the opposite
efect, as to the average American, $49 million
seems like a lot of money for just one movie.
He also goes on to mention the much lesser
known problem of e-book piracy, once again
giving a persuading fact about the sheer number
of pirated e-books, along with a reputable com-
pany used to back up this claim.
Although this may seem like a biased, one-sid-
ed article, Porter does mention the oppositions
point of view, stating, while piracy may be
cutting the pay of record label executives, it
doesnt seem to have stopped musicians from
making new music (Porter). He goes on to
mention another fact from Nielsen that shows
how the number of albums released increased
25 percent from 2005 to 2010. Tis fact helps to
show that while the problem of piracy continues
to increase, it has not scared away anyone from
producing his or her art.
However, the next paragraph goes on to say that
piracy is already making it harder and harder
for independent producers to raise money for
small and mid-budget movies. Tis helps to
evoke even more sympathy from the audience,
because if directors, producers and writers cant
even raise the money to make the flm, they will
not be able to make it at all. Tis calls upon the
audiences values, even if they are partly respon-
sible for the piracy problem, because if the mov-
ies themselves arent even made, there is nothing
for them to pirate, making it so nobody wins.
Porter closes his article with the following
sentence If we value what creative industries
produce as much as we say we do, Congress will
have to fnd a way to protect it without limiting
speech (Porter). He incorporates we solely
into this last line, making an even stronger con-
nection to the audience, and giving it a powerful
ending that the reader will remember. He also
reiterates that although he believes that there is
a signifcant problem with online piracy, he is
still on the audiences side, and is still technically
against the bills that Congress has come up with.
Due to Porters ability to relate to the audience,
while also evoking a sympathetic response, he
was able to construct a well thought out argu-
ment. An argument, that is strongly reinforced
by tangible facts, which could also help lead to a
change in the audiences attitude towards online
piracy.
THE INTERNET BLACKOUT
Screenshot of a Utorrent window
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