NCAA Student Fans Enjoy Hoops, Death Threats

By Spencer Hall
And I thought the West Coast was supposed to be the mellower coast. Kevin Love certainly can’t think that anymore after his cell phone number landed in the hands of Oregon fans in January.
[quote="Grant Wahl"]On Jan. 23, the day before the Bruins-Ducks showdown in Eugene, Love found more than 30 voice-mail messages on his cellphone when UCLA stopped for a layover in San Francisco. He listened to the first one: If you guys win, we’ll come to your house and kill your family. He played another: We’ll find your hotel room and blow your f------ head off with a shotgun. [/quote]
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Love quickly cut off his cellphone service and wisely had the number changed.
Wahl wonders out loud in the article if “college fans have gone too far,” but this seems like your standard “kids these days” argument. (Grant Wahl says, “his lawn, you needs to get off it.”)
For anyone who remembers Vandy fans taunting Dwayne Schintzius by throwing tennis balls at him after he beat his roommate with a tennis racket, the level of mania hasn’t changed at all, nor the degree of nastiness.
College basketball fans are nasty and smart as college students are wont to be, meaning you’ll probably always get cleverness like Duke’s “MARYLAND: FEAR THE CLASSROOM” signs seen during the last Terrapin/Blue Devil matchup.
The level of technology, though, has changed. Meaning an additional cost for student athletes will be the line on their cell phone bill for blocking calls and changing service every time their number leaks. You can’t change mean smartass basketball fans; you can, however, change a cellphone number. And as Wahl points out, the best revenge is victory, which Love and UCLA got versus the Ducks.
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