The line between fun and foolish is often a fine one.
For the one’s who’ve managed to purge the moment from their permanent memory, allow me to take you back because for that if-you-don’t-know-history-you’re-doomed-to-repeat it factor.
September 16, 2005. Bragg Memorial Stadium.
Everyone draped in orange and green was having fun. I wasn’t there that afternoon, but I can imagine the scene.
Up 24-0 by halftime, the victory was all but a wrap. The Bison were being taken to the proverbial woodshed. Even the most tried-and-true Rattler wouldn’t have held it against you for too long for going home, hitting the shower one time and proceeding to the late-night activity of choice.
But of course you had to catch the world renowned Marching 100 before leaving.
And that’s when people started cutting the clean fool.
As the band prepared to exit the field with a little less than four minutes remaining on the halftime clock, some hooligan Howard football players violated an unwritten rule at HBCUs. They broke the band’s line.
Silly football players, trying to reenter the field to warm up before the third quarter while the band, which is why everyone is really there, is still performing. Like people paid money to see them or something. Please, note the sarcasm.
A story in “The Hilltop,” Howard’s campus newspaper, on Sep. 19 said something about the band camping out on Howard’s sideline, drinking their water.
It’s all irrelevant to me. The ignorance that ensued afterward was embarrassing, spectators throwing bottles, an altercation that took nearly 15 minutes to resolve.
Perspective always lends understanding.
Picture them looking at us with their Willie Lynch papers in hand. Two preeminent black institutions of higher learning personifying the the word they won’t let anyone call them.In his convocation speech David Jackson said there are still instances in when blacks must work twice as hard to get half as far. We also have to put in an equal effort to redeem ourselves after we’ve screwed up.
So, when you step foot in the Gaither Gymnasium tonight, have a good time. But don’t be a fool
To the Howard folks: if you don’t tell anyone about what happened in September, neither will we.
Nick Birdsong is a senior newspaper journalism student from St. Petersburg, Fla. He can be reached at mrbirdsong@hotmail.com