Missouri Tigers: Free the Antlers!

The Antlers pose as a group after the throwback game at the Hearnes Center.

I’m assuming most Mizzou fans were not paying much attention to the Missouri Tigers basketball team’s 72-63 victory over Gardner-Webb this weekend since the Tiger football team was just about to take on Ole Miss in one of the biggest games of the year. I myself was a few beers into my tailgate in The Grove when one of my friends tapped me on the shoulder and told me that the Antlers – Mizzou’s famed cheering section – had tweeted that the entire group had been ejected before the game even started.

Now, before I get into this, I should disclose that I was an active member of the Antlers from 2003 to 2007, and still remain friends with a lot of guys I met in the group. In fact, I was tailgating with a half-dozen former Antlers in Oxford when we saw the tweets. Obviously, we were curious to know what was done that was so bad that the whole group would be ejected.

Based on texts with some of the current members, they were confused as well. We were even more surprised when we found out that the following chant was the one that got the group booted:

“Scum, scum, scum, go back to where you’re from,

Scum, scum, scum, go back to where you’re from,

Scum, scum, scum, go back to where you’re from,

And Die!”

Obviously this isn’t the nicest thing to say to someone, but it’s hardly worthy of ejecting the entire group. In fact, the chant comes from the movie Fletch Lives, which came out in 1989, and the Antlers have yelled it at every basketball game for almost a quarter century. In my years in the Antlers, we heard warnings for a lot of things we said, but I can’t ever recall that chant being mentioned.

This situation was likely a long time coming. From my years in the group, I can tell you there has always been a constant push-pull between the Antlers and the Mizzou athletic department. The Antlers goal was to constantly tip-toe up to the proverbial “line”, stare over the edge, and try not to cross it. Sometimes we would cross it. The problem is that the line kept moving. What was acceptable one year, was not acceptable the next. What was okay one game was bad the next. The athletic department kept moving the line, which made it hard to know where it was.

It’s clear that the Athletic Department had pre-determined that they would be ejecting the Antlers before the game even started. They were just waiting for the Antlers to say literally anything and were going to give them the boot. Apparently, the line is now anything that is not singing the fight song or jiggling your keys.

If the members of the Antlers wanted to be the guys who just showed up, yelled “OOOOOOHHHH” half the game and stood in silence the other half of the game, they would have joined Zou Crew – the official University cheering group. Trust me, it would be easier. Instead, they forgo having the front seats reserved, show up earlier than everyone else, just to sit behind a group largely composed of fair weather fans to be able to add their own twist to the fan experience.

I was a member of the Zou Crew as a freshman before joining the Antlers as a sophomore. I joined the Antlers because they were clearly having more fun than anyone else in the arena, and I liked having fun at basketball games.

It was fun trying to get in the other teams heads, and see if you could affect the game. That’s all the Antlers are really trying to do. I’ve seen in posted on message boards and in articles the Antlers are just trying to draw attention to themselves. Shameless self-promoters. Well, that’s partially true. The Antlers are trying to draw attention to themselves.

But, the truth is, while getting the crowd to chuckle was always nice, the only people the Antlers really hope are watching are the players and coaches on the visiting team. If they can get a guy to miss a free throw, or get him off his game and start turning the ball over, the Antlers feel like they’ve done a good job.

Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying you should like the chant that the Antlers were booted for. I’m not saying you should like The Antlers. And I’m not saying you should like anything the Antlers say. But you should definitely respect the Antlers rights to say it. Last I checked, there is a First Amendment right to free speech, and a University funded with public tax dollars should surely respect that right.

Having the police escort the group out and take driver’s licenses and IDs over a chant that has been said for over 20 years is ridiculous. It’s clearly a move meant to intimidate a bunch of college students. If they can do that to someone at a basketball game, can they then do it to a student with an unpopular opinion in class?

What about someone who says something unpopular at Speaker’s Circle? Street preachers like Brother Jed used show up on campus to tell me I was going to hell and spew hate rhetoric against women and homosexuals that is way worse than anything I’ve ever heard the Antlers say, but I’ve never heard the University having any problem with that.

Yet a bunch of 21-year-old students which an actual affiliation to the University of Missouri who show up and hurl some taunts at their peers in good fun are now getting a police escort out of the arena and being threatened with further sanctions affecting their status as students. This seems ridiculous to me. Especially since the Antlers acknowledged that they were trying to adjust their material to fit into what the athletic department deems acceptable.

I personally hope the current Antlers keep doing what they have always done. Get there early. Be loud. Taunt without cursing. Be clever. Have fun. And support the team even when the opponent is poor or the team itself is in a down year. I can tell you as someone who was a student during the end of the Quin Snyder era that when the team is down, the Antlers are the ones who are still in the stands supporting the team as loud as ever while most of the rest of the students are MIA.

There has to be a balance to be struck with the athletic department. The atmosphere is better at Missouri Tigers basketball games with the Antlers in the house. There’s no reason this nearly 40 year-old relationship needs to go bad. Nobody wins if that happens.