I find it hard to believe he was actually patient zero, the person who spread this viral disease. But the first time I recall its appearance was my freshman year, 1997, in the form of some squirrely dork in a silk-screened Todd Burgan jersey. Every time the Sour Sitrus Society burst into Gary Glitter's noted arena anthem "Rock and Rock, Part 2" (aka "The Hey Song"), this creature would bastardize the post-"Hey!" part by adding his own trite and profane lyrics over the instrumentals. You know them by now:
Hey, you suck!
Hey, you suck!
Fuck 'em up
Fuck 'em up
Go SU!
We're gonna kick the shit outta you!
And every time Dork Burgan loudly yelled these "satirical" lyrics, he would mischievously look around, as if he was getting away with something. My friends and I used to loudly mock him during every Carrier Dome home game that year. Until a funny thing started to happen...others began to join him.
You see, Syracuse fans have an odd obsession with cursing.
The song is now a staple at home games, "home" games, road games, neutral sites...hell (curse word!), ANY place Syracuse fans gather en masse and pedophile Gary Glitter's glam rock hit that no one knows the actual title to spews out.
There's a YouTube video (with over 130,000 views) of fans "singing" it in the Carrier Dome while watching the '03 title game.
I enjoy this absolutely precious YouTube comment:
Which is more poignant than you'd think. Why do we think adding trite curse-y lyrics to an even triter song is a tradition worth keeping? Shit, a certain large group of students was mad when the song was BANNED from Carrier Dome sporting events in 2002. The Daily Orange even wrote an article about this song that "wasn’t inherently clever, but the students took pride in it." Yet it goes on, getting stronger and stronger, and more viral than ever.
In fact, the only time I saw any life from the crowd during Saturday's nooner against Temple was when The Garden played it (screw standing and cheering for basketball--oh wait, "Du duhn duhn duh HEY, YOU SUCK!"). East End Bar & Grill plays it after each football victory, and I'd be a liar to claim I didn't sing along after this year's amazing comeback against USF. Stockholm Syndrome, dude. Or maybe just the all-you-can-drink-Coors-Light deal, dude.
But the swear-love doesn't stop there. Before basketball games, as the opposing team's lineup is announced, our student section does the kind of individual player taunting that was last funny back when students wore beaver skin coats.
"Who's he?!"
"So what?!"
"Who cares?!"
"Big deal!"
The final one for the final opposing player, of course, being:
"Big shit!"
"Big shit!" I shit you not. Has no one ever noted that "Big shit" is not a known term of curse in any part of the world? If anything...it's a compliment. The Big Shit on Campus.
I'm no prude. I wrote one of the most profane books most people have read. It's just this childish and completely unoriginal cursing that has always perplexed me. It gives "classier" schools a reason to paint us with the West Virginia dumb hick brush.
Or maybe, I just dream of a world where we can be both clever and profane. Less like that dork in the Burgan jersey, and more like Al Swearengen in Deadwood. "Big shit!"? How about "stinkin’ little cocksucker!"
Then again, if not for the dork in the Burgan jersey, if not for this obsession with childish cursing, perhaps we would have never won "ten fucking games."
But seriously, big shits...why do we love dumb cursing so much?
#TacoTime: Tacoless in New York City
"Neutral" site games aren't eligible for Taco Time scoring, so this week there were no opportunities for any of our cagers to net the CNY masses some Grade D ground beef carelessly dumped inside a federally-subsidized corn shell.
Aaron Goldfarb is the author of How to Fail: The Self-Hurt Guide and The Cheat Sheet. Syracuse basketball is the only thing he would ever write about for free. Send questions, thoughts, or profanity-laced tirades to aaron@aarongoldfarb.com or @aarongoldfarb