All football teams have a chant that the fans know and can yell in unison when something good happens in the game. It shows solidarity and just kind of sounds cool. I don’t have any problem with that.
I also don’t have a problem with what I heard on Saturday. Most have at least heard of the movie “300.” The movie is about arguably the toughest civilization that ever lived, known for their godlike warrior abilities: the Spartans. Not the green and white ones, but the tough-as-nails, bred-to-fight-and-die Spartans the movie was based on.
At one point in the movie, King Leonidas asks his warriors, “Spartans, what is your profession?” They reply with an awesomely disciplined war chant. This sounded pretty cool, and put a smile on my face when it echoed through Spartan Stadium.
What I am worried about here is this being taken too far. A little bit of referencing a very cool movie will go a long way. I don’t want to see the band doing the halftime show in leather underwear and red capes. Finally, maybe my biggest problem with this is I don’t know if we have earned it yet. The Spartans have been an extremely mediocre football team – especially the past few years – but I like what I see so far this year. The team displayed their toughness Saturday by not quitting and by finishing that game definitively.
We have maybe the coolest mascot in all of sports, period, but I think we should earn the title a little more before we exploit “300” more than we deserve to. Toughness is something I have seen us seriously lack in the past, so I don’t think we should imply that we are ready to take on the Persian Empire just yet. Let’s start with the rest of the Big Ten.
Mike Agone
2003 MSU alum
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