Flags are for pulling

Hath-Time By Nathan Hathaway

Fresno State sports fans have been given new motivation to cheer louder at football games.

But you can’t help wondering if it might, at least in part, be at the expense of a couple of other sports to cheer for.

The athletic department found a new way to whip Bulldogs fans into a frenzy—a pretty expensive way.

While the men’s soccer and women’s swimming and diving teams are quickly approaching a deadline to raise $2.7 million, the spirit squad unveiled its new 15-by-18-foot Bulldog spirit flag at last Saturday’s football game. The huge flag, together with four 6-by-9 flags with single letters—D, O, G and S—on them, cost $3,000, Connan Campbell of the Student Activities and Leadership Development department said. Some of that money, Campbell said, came from the athletic department while some came from fundraising by the spirit team.

That’s $3,000 that could have gone to the SOS (save our sports) cause. It doesn’t make much of a dent in a $2.7 million bill, but it’ll be an outrage if the soccer and swimming and diving teams can only come up with $2,697,000. Can’t you just see it?

“ Oh, sorry guys, you’re three grand short. It was a nice try, just not quite good enough. But we’ll still help the athletes stay physically active. They can take turns running up and down the sidelines with our new flags.”

Maybe the flags will be some consolation when the soccer and swimming teams are going to need the 15-by-18 hanky to dab their eyes and blow their noses when they’re eliminated. They’ll snot on the Bulldog just like the Bulldogs snotted on them.

“ Well, yes, valued student-athletes, there was a little bit more money we could have given to rescuing your sports, but we thought this big piece of cloth was much more worthwhile than our commitment to you.”

And why so many flags? The manufacturer must have been having its semi-annual “buy some letters and we’ll throw in a huge logo sale.” What about a slightly more modest flag with all four letters on it? Or just the behemoth Bulldogs banner?

“ DOGS” on one flag would probably be just as effective as, if not more effective than, “D-O-G-S” on four. No one wants to have to think when they go to a football game.

Don’t make Ferdinand and Fanny Fresno State fan phoneticize it on four flags when you can simply say so on a single standard.

Or make life even easier and don’t make football supporters read at all. There’s a reason small children learn using picture books. It’s doesn’t require as much thought. For the most part, people go to sporting events to escape the daily grind, to escape the need to think.

But people are going to have to think what role they’ve played when there’s no soccer or swimming to go watch.

And the athletic department is going to need a pretty big washing machine to clean its new 15-by-18 handkerchief.