Ohio!

[rain_gryphon]

And as often and deservedly as I take them to task for causing squalor and disorder in the heart of what would otherwise be a pleasant city, it must be admitted that OSU has what may well be the best marching band on earth. They make me shiver every time I see them.

I have beer and pizza, and it's time for OSU/Michigan :) It's weird that I can see the blimp on TV, then step outside and see it circling to the south. It may interest Loganberry to know that like most American sporting contests, the occasion starts off with patriotic music and prayers.

Comments

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

It may interest Loganberry to know that like most American sporting contests, the occasion starts off with patriotic music and prayers.

Hmmm, well, the highest-profile sporting events here are probably football internationals, and in those each country's national anthem is played before the game. (The away team's anthem is also usually shamelessly, and shamefully, booed and whistled all through by the crowd on almost every occasion.) Other than that any pre-match music is usually just (usually rather poor) modern pop stuff. There used to be a tradition of marching bands (in the British sense of the term, meaning Army bands or the like) at half-time in football and rugby games, but that's nearly died out since about the early 1990s.

I've never heard of prayers being said (in any official context at least) before a British sporting event. The closest thing I can think of to a religious occasion is that the hymn Abide With Me is traditionally sung before the FA Cup Final (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Cup_Final), although most of the crowd simply ignore it these days. (Incidentally, the Cup Final was also one of the places where you'd always see a band at half time.)

Welsh rugby crowds sing Bread of Heaven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cwm_Rhondda) with great gusto, and English cricket fans especially (and to an extent the players and management) have gradually adopted Jerusalem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time), but in neither case would the singers generally feel they were showing any specifically Christian emotion by singing them.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

One of the things that always seems 'off' about the USGP is that there isn't any prayer beforehand. Before the Five Hundred the Archbishop of Indianapolis always presents a short nondenominational service, and then there's a traditional prayer for a safe race that everyone joins in. The NASCAR guys are rather more demonstrative in their pre-race prayers, lining up in formation to pray and salute the flag, but they're southerners, so one expects that. The South isn't necessarily more religious than the rest of the country, but tends to view religion more as a group activity that should take place in public.

I can't imagine Americans booing anyone's national anthem, unless there was serious animosity there. We'd probably catcall Iran, and perhaps France, but otherwise that would be considered unspeakably rude. On the other hoof, that may be because we just don't play a lot of international sports. Singing rude parodies of the other school's fight song is considered perfectly acceptable.

Whistling here's still considered a form of applause, although that's slowly changing. Younger people don't seem to whistle and stomp anymore. I think that started to change after the 1980 Winter Olympics, when one of the ice skaters fled in tears because the crowd was whistling and stomping after her performance. That got a lot of coverage here.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

otherwise that would be considered unspeakably rude

It is unspeakably rude, and the radio/TV commentators condemn it every time it happens. It's only in football, though: rugby and cricket crowds are much better behaved.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Did I ever tell you that I used to be *IN* that band?

[xolo.livejournal.com]

You played the Sousaphone, IIRC. And I'm suitably impressed. Our band won the Indiana State Championship* when I was in high school, so I fully appreciate what kind of work and discipline goes into a show like that. It eats one's life and demands more, much like putting on a con.


*And what we did too was just a severely plain military-style show, without all the extreme elements that OSU employs. What we did, we did impeccably, but it's not the same as seeing the drum major kicking higher than his head as he bounds across the field.