Hung Vu's attack on University tradition regarding gameday attire ("Putting on airs", Nov. 17) is wildly misinformed and should be rejected by students and alumni. His view is the product of a campaign on the part of the athletics department and Al Groh to artificially manufacture and re-brand the atmosphere in Scott Stadium, dating back to 2003.
Vu's call for the adoption of orange t-shirts as necessary attire to be a good fan in Scott Stadium has been Groh's claim since he appointed himself head of the fan police. Football results do not support the case. The most heavily promoted "orange-out" efforts in recent years, including last year's nationally-televised embarrassment against Southern Cal in front of a stadium-record crowd, have routinely failed. While Vu cites several Southeastern Conference schools where students also traditionally dress up in the stands, he fails to recognize any of the schools from which the "sea of orange" was copied: Clemson, Virginia Tech, and Tennessee. Clearly, the University (U.S. News no. 24, no. 2 public) is more appropriately linked to Vanderbilt (U.S. News no. 17) and Georgia (U.S. News no. 58, no. 21 public) than the t-shirt schools.
Short institutional memory is likely responsible for Vu's failure to note that the University did field a successful football team on a consistent basis within recent memory. The Cavaliers won at least seven games each season for thirteen years from 1987-1999. During that span, Virginia claimed its only two ACC championships, and attained a no. 1 national ranking for three weeks during the 1990 season. The greatest victory in Virginia football history occurred not during the "sea of orange" era, but rather at a well-dressed Scott Stadium in 1995.
The Cavalier Daily's 2005 lead editorial ("The dress-up debate", Sept. 1, 2005) summed up the situation well to the then-incoming class of 2009:
"The tradition of dressing up for games has a great many things going for it. It set the University apart and demonstrated our trademark class, distinguishing us from the proverbial State U. It was a selling point for the school, right up there with Thomas Jefferson and the Rotunda. More than that, though, donning refined apparel built unity among the student body in a way throwing on a free T-shirt twenty minutes before game time never can. There's just something quintessentially "The University" about that... This is purely an issue of tradition and how the student body wants to present itself to the outside world. After all, some of the rowdiest student bodies, especially at schools in the Southeastern Conference, manage to combine polished dress and sportsmanlike hostility."
Traditions may change; however, there is no reasonable basis to carry on the assault against traditional gameday attire as Vu endeavors. Indeed, fans in Scott Stadium should generate noise on defense and unite in singing the Good Ole Song and cheering for first downs. Anyone present on a November night in 1995, along with anyone possessing common sense, would have to concur with the Managing Board's past editorial that a tie or string of pearls does not impair a University student's ability to so effectively engage in supporting the team. I suggest Vu's "culprit" is simply the extremely poor product we have recently witnessed on the field.
Logan Riddick\nCLAS '07
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