Editor, Daily Nexus:

I am sick and tired of reading about how good Gaucho Basketball fans are now, and how well they behaved at the Jan. 18 game against Long Beach State University that was televised on ESPN. I am pissed due to the fact that before the game took place I had to hear the cries of “Please behave, Gaucho fans,” and read articles in the Daily Nexus asking fans not to throw tortillas and act the fool. And now after the game, we (the Gaucho fans) get a special thank-you note in the Nexus from our beloved Head Coach Bob Williams applauding our spirit and good behavior. I say fuck that.

The REAL Gaucho fans are not those nerds who have no life and pay their $10 for those cheesy Gaucho-Loco T-shirts, promptly calling their parents after every home game to tell them how badly we lost. REAL Gaucho fans are not those losers who, on Friday night, sit in San Rafael Hall and reminisce about how funny the fantom was that night. Nor are they those who think that that creepy dude with the dark hair who is at every game leading those lame-ass chants is the coolest guy on campus.

The REAL Gaucho fans are the drunks who only show up to one basketball game ever – the one that is televised on ESPN – to hurl tortillas onto the court and have a raucous good time. The REAL Gaucho fans know how bad we really are and have absolutely no expectations about winning – they just want to have a good time. Five years ago, when it rained tortillas on the heads of UOP players, we actually won. Now we stop throwing tortillas, and look what happens. There is something special about fans that can get their team four technical fouls and the coach kicked out of the game – that’s an accomplishment. Let’s see the Gaucho-Locos do that. We suck, so let’s at least have some fun sucking.

We are no athletic powerhouse here at UCSB; we are barely even an athletic outhouse. Let’s think about it – if we throw tortillas, ESPN won’t come back. I say good. Why do we want them here in the first place, broadcasting to the whole nation just how garbage UCSB’s athletic program really is? Our only chance at national notoriety doesn’t lie within our basketball team; it lies within us, the REAL fans, and within the tortillas flying in from the heavens, knocking referees upside the head. Now that’s a SportsCenter moment.

So I plead with you, the REAL Gaucho fans – not the Gaucho-Locos, but the shunned and oppressed Gaucho-holics. Before the next ESPN televised basketball game, go to Costco, buy the biggest fucking bag of tortillas they got (preferably corn, they fly farther and faster) and a couple 30-packs of Bud. After the beer is gone, stuff those tortillas into your jackets, go to the game, and after the first UCSB basket, let those babies loose onto the court just the same way our forefathers did. Don’t worry about those guys in the yellow jackets either – they get paid $12 a game; do you think they want to take on an angry mob of REAL Gaucho fans? And, hey, if you got a little extra time on your hands, I say go to the women’s game and throw ’em too. VIVA LOS GAUCHOS!
RAYMOND CAMAHORT