“37, 38, 39, 40!”
Union’s student section of the Fred DeLay Gymnasium erupted in cheers as Nova Southeastern University’s women’s basketball team missed another practice shot during halftime.
I felt slightly conflicted about the heckling — college games being some of my only experiences with it — and wasn’t quite sure how to react. Did I join in and disregard all my mother’s warnings about peer pressure, or clutch my pearls and shake my head like a cranky disapproving church lady? I know which one my professor chose.
On the bleachers right below me, my professor was chuckling to himself as the number of missed shots continued to climb.
“Don’t laugh, professor!” I teased.
“What?! It’s funny,” he said, playfully defensive.
It was funny, but did the Nova girls think so? I have never been on the receiving end of heckling. I tried team sports in elementary and middle school, but then promptly decided in high school that teams and performing in front of people were not for me, secluding myself instead in the isolationist sports of martial arts and archery.
“50!” yelled the students with the same level of enthusiasm as if Union had just scored the winning point. Students laughed and grabbed each other on the shoulder, celebrating — it felt a little high school musical-y. I scanned the faces of the Nova players, and they didn’t seem phased at all. From where I was standing, the heckling didn’t seem to be hurting anyone, so I released my pearls and started counting along.
“54, 55, 56…”
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, I was all in. Well … partially in. I clapped along to the heckling chants — at least it was progress. But after the game, I began to think about away games and playing in a place where the crowd is rooting for your failure, especially with the Lady Bulldogs reaching the Final Four this season and having to play in lots of hostile gyms.
Personally, I think that would crush my soul like a grape. I don’t think any amount of meditation or mental barriers could prepare me for the heckling they face.
“I just try and turn the mindset into a positive,” Macey Lee, a senior cell and molecular biology major and guard/forward on the Union women’s basketball team, said. “People wanna watch two really good teams play — they wanna watch us. They have to bring their best fans and crowd to come watch us.”
Macey is grateful for the fans — friendly or not — because she played during COVID and remembers the time when the bleachers were empty and there were no fans at all.
I don’t know how much I agree with the “any fans are better than no fans” idea.
“Some places will have bands, and they’re the worst part,” Olivia Lee, a sophomore accounting major, guard for the Lady Bulldogs and younger sister of Macey Lee, said.
“I think I’d missed my first two or three shots, and [the band members] were like, ‘Give it to Macey. She’s just gonna shoot and miss again,’” Macey said. “Then I went to shoot a free throw, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, I just missed my [other shots].’ Like, normally I forget about it, but since they said it, it reminded me, and I missed the free throw.”
Opposing teams’ fans will look up the roster and find out information about players via their Instagram or other social media to use in their taunts. They will call out players’ names and mention personal details. They will even go as far as to make comments about the athletic trainer’s age or the coach’s wife.
“They were heckling our athletic trainer, and because he gets waters for us, they’re like, ‘You’re a 45-year-old water boy’ and stuff,” Olivia said. “But he’s literally only 25, and he was so hung up on them saying he was 45 years old.”
The Union men’s basketball team often gets the same treatment as the poor athletic trainer during away games. The fans don’t hesitate to comment on hairlines, resort to name-calling or mention players’ girlfriends.
“They’re more vocal towards the guys ‘cause guys are so emotional and reactionary,” Olivia said. “There’s one player who is kind of older, so he always gets made fun of for his hairline, but he just doesn’t care, and he’s also really good, so they’ll try and target him a lot.”
The Lady Bulldogs usually get a toned-down version of the heckling the men receive. The comments tend to be confined to the game itself and less directed toward the player’s character or traits.
“I think it’s a gender thing. People are gonna be a little bit nicer and sweeter to girls, not that they’re being sweet to us, but compared to what they say to the guys,” Olivia said.
Macey chimed in. “It’s mainly guys doing it, so doing that to a girl is kind of like, you know—”
“You’re seen as a jerk,” Olivia finished her sentence. The sisters’ interruptions flowed together to create one cohesive thought, a skill every sibling pair has mastered.
“It’s like a guy shouldn’t hit a girl. A guy shouldn’t talk like that to a girl,” Macey said.
While the Lee sisters say the men’s team gets the worst of the heckling (which is probably true), I am still shocked at the nonchalant way they speak about their own experiences with heckling.
“When you’re on the court, I feel like it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other because you think about it for a second, but then you’re on to the next play,” Macey said.
She explained that it wasn’t always that way for her. She had to learn to tune out the noise and focus on the game. When she was younger, heckling would bother her more, but now she has matured and grown used to it. In fact, she has even learned how to let the heckling fuel her.
“I’m just very stoic. You can talk, but I’m not gonna talk back. I’ll just show you,” Macey said. “I’m gonna prove them wrong.”
I had never thought about heckling as a form of motivation. As someone who can only imagine tears or pure, unfiltered rage as my two responses to heckling, it made no sense to me. But after speaking with the Lee sisters, I was relieved that there was a third option.
Heckling can start a fire in athletes that drives them to play their best despite the noise.
“I’m gonna shut them up. I’m gonna make some baskets,” Macey said. “They’re not gonna cheer if we’re going on a run.”
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