Opinion

Fight Songs And America’s Wussification

John Steigerwald Contributor
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“Fight Golden Knights
Fight for the Green and the Gold
Fight to win this game.”

Those are the first three lines of my high school’s fight song. The nickname has since been changed to Rebels, but otherwise the lyrics have stayed the same.

I’m afraid to ask if it’s still called a fight song.

In a recent conversation with my grandson, he mentioned his middle school’s Pride Song.

That’s right. No more fight song. Fight is a violent word. It may give the kiddies the mistaken impression that fighting is okay.

I didn’t take the time to call all the schools in my area, so forgive me if I assume that this is a trend that has spread and will continue to spread beyond my grandson’s middle school.

I don’t know if it’s okay to have a pride song that includes the word “fight,” but I have a feeling it won’t be okay for too much longer.

Last April the student government at the University of Utah decided the school’s fight song, “Utah Man” was sexist, racist and just plain politically incorrect.

The words fan and men were substituted for man and men and the poor, unsuspecting fans who had shown up for Utah football games for 100 years, no longer had to fear being offended by the song.

I did some checking to see how many college “Pride Songs” may be in need of some major wussification before they offend the sensibilities of our future leaders.

I was shocked and distressed to find that most college fight songs include the word fight:

Pitt’s Pride Song might take some pretty creative editing. Guess what the first word in the song is. Yep.

“Fight on for dear old Pittsburgh.”
The chorus is :
“Da da da da da-da Pitt, fight!”
“Da da da da da-da , Pitt, fight.”

No wonder there’s so much violence at college football games.

And somebody better do something about the Naval Academy’s Pride Song. It’s treasonous.

“Stand Navy down the field,
And SINK the Army, SINK the grey!”
Is our Commander in Chief aware of this?

The Air Force Academy Pride Song is not only violent and pro-war, it’s sexist.

It hardly follows the lead of the University of Utah, whose Vice President of Student affairs, Barbara Snyder, said, “We didn’t want the fight song to be something that divided people. We wanted it to be something that pulled people together.”

“Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun.
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,
At ‘em boys, give ‘er the gun!”

And those Aggies at Texas A&M have a lot of work to do. Their pride song is called “The Aggie War Hymn.”

War? What about the children?

And the Aggies are so mean that they threaten their biggest rival in the middle of the song:

“Good-bye to Texas University
So long to the Orange and the White
Good luck to the dear old Texas Aggies
They are the boys that show the real old fight
‘The eyes of Texas are upon you…’
That is the song they sing so well.
So good-bye to Texas University
We’re going to beat you all to —”

Now, that’s really mean. Can’t we all get along?

Pittsburgh ex-TV sportscaster, columnist and talk show host John Steigerwald is the author of the Pittsburgh sports memoir, “Just Watch The Game.” Follow him on Twitter and listen to his podcast at pittsburghpodcastnetwork.com