Anonymous wrote:When you sing to a bunch of boys, "you say HE's just a friend" (rewording), you're saying they are gay and closeted.

I hope the explanations about it being a prior song are true. Still don't understand - what on earth makes that song a victory song?

Anonymous wrote:Let me clarify this whole situation.
The chants were not meant to be homophobic at all, regardless of how they were perceived. St. Albans' hockey team beat Georgetown Prep's hockey team twice in the week before the basketball game. The STA fans began a chant of "swiss cheese [GP Goalie]" as if to say he was made of holes for allowing so many goals. The St. Albans' hockey team's victory song is (for whatever reason) Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." Thus, when the STA fans began to mock GP's hockey team, GP fans responded by mocking STA's hockey team and their ridiculous choice of victory music. When St. Albans won the basketball game, they sang the song back as if to say "we don't care if you think our victory music is stupid, we're going to sing it when we win." None of the cheers where homophobic in any capacity, although it is easy to see how they could be interpreted that way.

Anonymous wrote:Read, people. The OP said the song was "clearly reworded" to be anti-gay.

Anonymous wrote:Read, people. The OP said the song was "clearly reworded" to be anti-gay.

Anonymous wrote:Read, people. The OP said the song was "clearly reworded" to be anti-gay.

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I go to STA and unfortunately you have misinterpreted the reason that the song was sung. That song is the STA Hockey Team's "Victory Song" that they sing in the locker room after every win. The STA Hockey Team had earlier that week beaten the Prep Hockey Team in the semi-finals of the playoffs but then lost to Landon in the finals the day before the basketball game. The Prep guys were singing the song during the basketball game to rub it in STA's face that even though we beat them in the semi-finals of the hockey tournament, we lost in the finals. We were retaliating by singing the song as a sort of "basketball victory song" after we beat them in the basketball game, and to show that we were still proud of our hockey team. You all seem to really misinterpret a lot of this stuff. We are just high school kids, we aren't thinking that deeply.

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I go to STA and unfortunately you have misinterpreted the reason that the song was sung. That song is the STA Hockey Team's "Victory Song" that they sing in the locker room after every win. The STA Hockey Team had earlier that week beaten the Prep Hockey Team in the semi-finals of the playoffs but then lost to Landon in the finals the day before the basketball game. The Prep guys were singing the song during the basketball game to rub it in STA's face that even though we beat them in the semi-finals of the hockey tournament, we lost in the finals. We were retaliating by singing the song as a sort of "basketball victory song" after we beat them in the basketball game, and to show that we were still proud of our hockey team. You all seem to really misinterpret a lot of this stuff. We are just high school kids, we aren't thinking that deeply.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because a teenager chants a song at a Bball game doesn't mean he hates gays. Folks on this thread need to take a deep breath, relax, and go pursue a more important activity.

Yes, but please consider the effect of those words on others. This chant or song ("say he's just a friend" -- but we all know he isn't because you're gay!) is meant to put down, or insult, an opponent by insinuating that they are gay. It perpetuates and reinforces the idea that being gay is clearly a bad thing, a real defect or weakness in a person (otherwise why is it considered a put-down?). (Is it similarly an insult to insinuate that someone is "straight"? Perhaps it should be.)

In any case, it really does impact those young men in the audience who are gay, and who are perhaps struggling with that fact at a very vulnerable age, and in a society where many people clearly still view that as a defect. How do I know? Because I (a woman) volunteered for a youth organization, and one day found one of our male students clearly broken up and upset about something. He confided in me that he was gay, which I had not suspected, and that he was upset because several of his classmates/teammates/colleagues had been joking "you're a f@#", and no "i'm not a f@#" in their group that afternoon. He told me it really hurt, because even though he had come to accept the fact of his sexuality (as clearly he had, since he shared that fact with me), it nevertheless let him know that his friends (to whom he had not yet come out) essentially rejected, looked down on, and had a very negative view of his sexuality.

It was so painful for me to see that, and it really did change the way I thought about the casual use of derogatory words and insinuations. It's just hurtful, it really is, even if no real 'hate' is intended. Please remind your young men of that fact.