The painted chests, the spirit fingers, the never-ending roar when the home team is on defense—yes, everyone loves to be part of the Sixth Man Club at basketball games. Whether at a college game or a high school game, the rowdy group of devoted students is a focal point in school athletics. Each school that has a club like this demonstrates its character and personality, giving not only the players, but the rest of the fans, a unique atmosphere.

Cheerleaders, though they hold a highly appreciated position during games, usually give the fans repetitive chants throughout the games. The average fan will not give more than a “shoot” or “come on defense” throughout a game. A Sixth Man Club prepares an arsenal of player-specific and team-specific chants that not only manifest originality, but also creativity and wit. Such a quality, even if it may be a little irreverent, cannot be taken away. Likewise, the irreverence of some of these chants are really what make the whole experience enjoyable and amusing.

Some view the antics of our Sixth Man Club as a hindrance however. People from opposing schools and administration heaped an onslaught of complaints against our Sixth Man Club last year, from taunting to even just being too loud.

The nature of a Sixth Man Club is to be wild, to carry an arrogance and cockiness that is exaggerated intentionally to truly speak for the fans. A team needs a group like this not just to avoid having a tepid game environment, but because it offers a lot of supplemental qualities as well. If our Titans happened to be losing a game, the “steroids” chant for instance is something that still brings a bit of banter and uplifting humor back into the morale of everyone involved.

Regardless, whatever may seem offensive or too outrageous for a high school basketball game, the limitations of a Sixth Man Club bring about issues of censorship that we hear about so often with organizations like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Not to say that the Central Coast Section (CCS) is like the FCC, but truly, words are just words. Along with this, there are definitely Sixth Man Clubs within CCS that get away with far more than what our club gets caught for.

Maybe part of the fun of our Sixth Man Club is that there will always be controversy. If the stalwart Titan fans cannot push the boundaries of irreverence to support the basketball team, what fun is that?