Chants, Cheers for OUR Home Court

[ilovescruggs]

Last night I was moved by the creativity of our students with several signs, most notably "Brokeback Mountaineers."

Similarly, I was moved within a degree of insanity listening to that droning, mindless Mountaineer cheer. I've often stated that our cheers weren't very profound, but at least we have more than one. I'm hoping that here we can vary it even more.

On my way out of the SJU game I noticed Hoya Blue was soliciting fans to send in their own cheers, so I'm hoping here that we can birth a few cool ones for our critical home game against the Cuse.

There are a few suppositions I'll get out of the way right up front. 1.) Our cheerleaders are useless, 2.) Hoya Blue has the savvy to be able to post several students throughout the student sections to coordinate cheers and 3.) HB can train our students (possibly at an on-campus gathering offering free pizza) so we can execute some new, slightly complicated and possibly team-specific chants by the 25th. (Think of "Dar-Ryl, Dar-Ryl every time DJ drains a 3 pt.)

I believe that there's an e-mail address where we can send these suggestions (something like [e-mail]) but I don't remember it exactly.

I'll offer one suggestions for opposing foul shots.

Rather than just waiting and waiving at the last second, what if each slowly swayed their hands right then left, back and forth, with each row starting the motion just a half-second after the row in front of them. The effect, if done correctly, would be like rolling waves. I'll be the first to admit it would be tricky to pull off, but if we could, it would be the most disorienting foul-line distraction I can think of.

Anyway, who's got some potentials?

[HoyaDestroya]

i think some of those on this board need to share cell phone numbers, etc... there were a couple of moments of creativity that needed to be shared with hoya blue leaders last night i.e. "shotgun - wedding" chant.

[CAHoya07]

The e-mail address is [e-mail]. We can never get enough ideas for cheers, so keep 'em coming.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

My favorite sign was, "Dribble faster, I hear banjos". CLASSIC & well done.

[YB]

Thank you. That one and the "Brokeback Mountaineers" one referenced by Barker were my babies, as the nice folks at Clyde's before the game could tell you.

I personally liked "We'll Brokeback YOUR Mountain". Also well done.

[cheerhoya03]

I would kill to be back at these games. I also find the cheers/chants humorous. However, I must defend the cheerleaders that you have pinned as "useless." As an alum and reader of the boards, I've found nothing but positive, pro-HOYAS posts around here. So, let me throw something out there for - The cheerleaders cannot join in on your chants that harass / are clever towards the other team for obvious reason that you as either a Georgetown student / Alum should know..... Also, maybe they wouldn't be useless if Hoya Blue would coordinate with them as well as the entire student section - Everyone got along just fine when I was there, I would hope that this has not changed...Just wanted to throw that out there....

[ilovescruggs]

Forgive the useless comment, but I feel that by and large our fans generally ignore our cheerleaders. I have no problem with them and am friends with some, but they are far less effective than Hoya Blue at getting the crowd into the game.

I agree with you that they should coordinate and obviously the cheerleaders have to keep it tasteful. Hopefully they can be more involved in the future. Perhaps getting a WE ARE and GEORGE-TOWN sign printed up for next year. I really dig that chant.

Anyway, I'd really like to get a few new ideas going for the Cuse game, though my brain is currently running dry.

Also, and this probably applies for next year more than this year, can we please try to do something with those video psyche-up segments on the jumbotron? I can't stand those Jack Black and Samuel L scenes. The Braveheart scene was good a few years back, but by and large I think they should be more Georgetown specific. Perhaps GU film enthusiasts could make a short segment for each home game, a la the Army-Navy videos aired at that classic game.

[YB]

From the Exorcist.... "The Power of Christ Compels you!!!!!"

[nolahoya]

this is my first post and it regards using the jumbotron. at the uva football games, just before the teams come out , on their jumbotron they have "cavalier man"on horseback in a video skit destroying the other teams mascot. for example, for the florida state game, cavalier man met up with chief seminole and stabbed him to death. the video shows cav man riding across campus on the way to the stadium and then someone in cavalier man's outfit on a horse rides into scott stadium with the cheerleadrers, someone holding a uva flag and then the players enter. by this time the crowd is going absolutely wild. if we could do a video with mascot dog winning over the other team's mascot and then the cheerleaders comein with our big flag, you'd have the crowd on their feet going wild. just a suggestion

[ilovescruggs]

Okay, this is what I came up with during my mini coffee break. I think it should be a standard for every game coming back from a TV time out or something. This was inspired by a poster on another thread who said the Cuse band concludes each practice by yelling "And Georgetown still stinks."

This is meant to alternate between both sides of the student sections and goes something like this:

1.) Ho-Ya
2.) Sa-Xa
1.) What Rocks?
2.) George-Town
1.) We-Are
2.) George-Town
1.) We-Own
2.) Syr-a-cuse
1 & 2 Together) Sucks! (or stinks if it's less offensive to some).

[ilovescruggs]

apparently stinks automatically get subbed in for a verb referring to actions performed on a straw. Apologies.

[RockawayHoya]

I still think we need to better coordinate the current staple cheers, like "Defense," "Let's Go Hoyas," and the screaming/jumping. Too often the cheer sounds like an echo, and while it has improved significantly during the course of this season, we can still do better. Perfect those, and then we can move on to other cheers.

[EasyEd]

Maybe we better watch the cheers: www.kirotv.com/sports/7011667/detail.html?rss=sea&psp=sports

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

I agree with Rockaway - HB is always open to new cheers, but if we can't get basic cheers down there's no point in adding new cheers to the mix - remember this is the first season that at least 1,300 of the students have been regularly coming to games. Also something that hasn't been suggested yet - SINGING. It sounds really good when everyone does the Hey Baby ... song, if we could get the band to play songs everyone knows like Sweet Caroline or something like that we could do more of it.

[theexorcist]

YB wasn't kidding - the nice people at Clyde's offered us markers to help with the signs. Beyond cool.

I feel sorry for the cheerleaders - the lack of a male cheerleader really limits the type of stunts that they can do. They're performing to the best of their ability right now, but they need some guys who have some power to both spot them and shoot them into the air to keep them from being another dance team.

One thing they didn't have to start the WVU game was the traditional "We Are Georgetown" video, which I find usually gets people excited (of course, then they have to quiet down for the anthem).

I'd also recommend that HoyaBlue consider using cell phones to coordinate cheers on the two sides. It's jarring to hear two loud "Dee-FENSE!" cheers that are two beats out of sync when you're in the middle - I've begun to like the loud cheering instead since it doesn't have this problem.

Ideas for Syracuse
1. Orange - Crushed!

General
1. Whose House? - Our House!

[ilovescruggs]

Ah... nothing intimidates opponents like a rousing chorus of Neil Diamond :-) Singing could be interesting though.

I think the echo problem is more a factor of the size of MCI Center, rather that the lack of coordination of our fans. I also agree, this is some advanced stuff. How does Duke get all their fans on the same page?

[burghoya]

stpetersburghoya said:

I agree with Rockaway - HB is always open to new cheers, but if we can't get basic cheers down there's no point in adding new cheers to the mix - remember this is the first season that at least 1,300 of the students have been regularly coming to games. Also something that hasn't been suggested yet - SINGING. It sounds really good when everyone does the Hey Baby ... song, if we could get the band to play songs everyone knows like Sweet Caroline or something like that we could do more of it.

hahah, I was acutally at a Carnegie Mellon basketball game the other night (when you go to Duquesne, you have to start looking for other options) and they started to play the "Hey Baby" song... I started to sing along. My friends looked at me in total disgust, but like most of the rationale for my actions I just said "It's a Gerogetown thing"... but yes, Sweet Caroline, perhaps some Whitesnake to get the 20-30 year old age bracket going?

As far as the cheers go, there are times when I've been watching from my seat at my house in Pittsburgh and will notice they aren't in unision. That comes with timing/actual time for people who aren't used to cheering to get it down. I mean, it's not like they can hold cheering practice before the games...

[RBHoya]

The key to timing the cheers is visual cues rather than audio cues. Even our most basic "Hoya Saxa" cheer has been adjusted now due to the split sides. The way sound goes in MCI, and being that the sound has to travel further now, you hear everything a split second later than you did when we were all together. Wheras it used to be "Hoya!-Saxa!" it's now more like "Hoya---Saxa!" if that makes any sense to anyone other than me.

The same thing has to apply to other cheers like Let's Go Hoyas and Defense, otherwise they're going to be mistimed. You can't do it by ear, because that split second difference throws it off. What I like to do is watch the hands of the guys on the otherside to see when they clap, and then go with that, since the split second difference doesn't apply to visuals, for all intents and purposes. I don't know if we can get all 1000 students per side to follow that closely though.

We've tried using cell phones to coordinate--in fact, we even bought walkie-talkies expressly to try to get both sides on the same page. Unfortunately, when the crowd gets going, it's no use because you can't hear a thing.

As for Duke... from what I know, they really discourage individuals from starting their own cheers, from what I hear. They have an intricate system of row leaders and stuff, and they tell everyone to cheer what their row leader cheers, and not just start chanting what they feel like. More of a cheer-tatorship, if you will. At Georgetown, people tend to start cheering what they want sometimes, regardless of what's going on. More of a cheer-ocracy, really. And you have to like that enthusiasm. At the same time, when people are starting their own cheers in the back of one student section and they're not on the same page as the guys in the front, and they're not on the same page as the guys on the opposite side, that's when sound gets all jumbled. It's a tricky issue, because really, how can you tell people not to start their own cheers? We try really hard to create enthusiasm and that's a great manifestation of it. But when people are taking that initiative rather than hanging back and waiting, it's tough to have one loud, unified cheer going.

[TBird41]

The Band side is a definately a cheer tatorship ruled by the Iron Fist of "Uncle 007".

007 does not lead cheers. He is cheers.

[YB]

"This is not a cheerocracy, this is a cheertatorship, I am the cheertator, I will make the cheercisions and I will live with the cheersequences!"