I can honestly say I have never been more disgusted or angry as an Alabama fan as I was after the LSU game. But unlike what a lot of the other armchair quarterbacks are in a fury about, it is not bad calls from the officials and coaches or the performance of offense and special teams that has me upset.

It’s the conduct of the student fans after we were beaten that has me on the warpath. There is a difference between knowing how to lose and being a loser and many of my fellow students need to understand that. To begin, let me say I’m a native Alabamian and I wasn’t brought home in baby-boy blue – I was brought home in crimson. I wasn’t taught the cheers as an incoming freshman by upperclassmen; I’ve known them since I was a boy.

There are many more in our fan base like me. That doesn’t make us any better as fans, but I do believe it makes us more responsible for setting the tone of behavior. Considering over half of the people I was greeting and meeting before entering the stadium were from out-of-state (most were from Maryland, which I found strange), I assume that being an Alabama fan is relatively new to many of my fellow students. That being said, the loss to LSU was not the end of the world–try enduring what many of us in the Crimson Nation have done since the mid-90s and scale that bump of defeat. But let me levy the two most serious charges of classlessness displayed by our fan base.

First, when you lose a pivotal game, don’t sit down with your head in your hands. The camera pans around and the national television audience does not need to see dejection, they need to see pride.

Instead, do what I did–clap for our team and sing the fight song as The Million Dollar Band plays. You stand, you hold your chin up, give a Roll Tide and live to sing Rammer Jammer another day.

The next and more serious crime of sportsmanship is the throwing of debris on our field. From my vantage, this mostly occurred from block seating. Let me touch on something here: I am a non-greek who lives with two greeks. Nearly half of the best people I have met since I came on this campus are greek. There is nothing I detest more than the greek and non-greek relations on campus and frankly, I can’t stand that much of the “news” I read about is based on that frivolous cleavage.

But let me say this as to how block seating pertains to what occurred after the game. I don’t care how much tuition you pay, I don’t care what your GPA is, I don’t care how many volunteer hours you have accrued, I don’t care how much money your family has given the University. I don’t care if you’re a part of a post-graduate or honors organization.

If ever a reason was given to abolish the block, it was given after the game. Block seating, much less student seating, is a privilege and if someone can’t support the team in a manner that displays class they have no business being in Bryant-Denny. There are a lot of student tickets from the block over to the general section that need to be revoked until they learn how to step back in that stadium with class. Someone once said, “I ain’t never been nothin’ but a winner.” Its about time we all act like it, even when we lose. How you walk off from a loss says a lot more about you than how you accomplish a win.

Cody Jones is a senior majoring in political science.