I Hate Bros, Wherever You Find Them

My dad and mom are season ticket holders at Penn State. They are the “bleed blue and white” types. Well he is, anyway. Mom loves going to good weather games. Dad would sit through Armageddon if the boys are playing.

Last season, dad began to complain a little bit about the season ticket holders a row below them. Occasionally, they would give the tickets away to two young men. Who were total douche bags.

Dad didn’t say it exactly like that. What he said was, they stood the whole game.

Before you go and give me a bunch of grief about “real fans don’t sit”...You have to understand a little about this section of the stadium.

These are old, mostly retired folks. Many of them held simple, blue collar jobs at the University, their whole lives. They worked in physical plant, the mushroom research facility, the registrar’s office or the library.

They get season tickets every year. They go to the Quarterback Club lunches. They hang on every word the coaches say. They are Joebots to a man...

And they are absolutely fucking awesome people.

They are pulling for the team. They bring binoculars. They’ll share a nip of their flask - usually a 12 year Scotch. They know all the players names by number. They will jump up and scream for a big play. But they don’t stand the whole game. Many of them can’t.

So these two douche bags and their dates would come into this section and be the only four people standing. In front of everyone above them. They would curse foully at the team, the refs, the other team, etc...

And basically make dad’s section uncomfortable.

To the point that my dad actually mentioned it to me on the phone. Which was nuts. He will throw the coaches under the bus, but he almost never complains about fans. But these two Bros managed to spoil his experience. And it wasn’t just him.

Ironically, the dam broke at last year’s Michigan State game and I was happily on hand for the debacle.

As usual, if you go to a game with my dad, we tailgated. I had a couple of bourbons and half a loaf of pepperoni bread to tide me over.

We got to our seats early to watch warm ups. That involves a long walk to the stadium. A long walk up the long ramp to the entrance to the upper deck. And then a climb up the stairs nearly to the press box.

The seats are up in the clouds, around the 25-30 yard line, which is great.

The Bros showed up after the start of the first quarter, drunk out of their minds. They bulled their way down their row, yelling at the field the whole way.

The folks behind me began to grumble.

I was amazed at the buffoonery, once they arrived. They kissed their girls. They continued to yell at the field. The swore. Folks around them began to turn away.

They were millenial version of Night at the Roxbury Bros...

By the end of the first quarter, the constant standing, the fist bumping, and the swearing began to wear on me. The grumbling behind me began to get louder.

At one point, I finally asked them to sit down. They refused and from behind me, this old gray beard yelled...

“Sit the fuck down.”

They took that as a challenge to their manhood. And these two were all about measuring contests. The dam broke and there was a war, for the entire second quarter. The girlfriends, bless their hearts, began to get upset.

I guess forty odd people calling into question their birth, ancestry, sexual practices, and IQ got to the girls. The douchebags just amped it up. They got louder, fouler, and more obnoxious.

The old guy behind me was ready to fight. Someone finally called security, to keep it from escalating any further.

Honestly, I’d had it by half time. I was ready to simply move seats to get away from their antics. But the hostility and the girls must have prevailed, because they didn’t come back after half.

Here’s the thing, every fan base has douche bros. My wife and I went to see a UNC basketball game, while I was a grad student there. A fight broke out, between UNC fans, directly above us. The combatants fell onto us.

We left.

The point is, all those douche bros? They are all from New Jersey.

Your Friend,

Townie