PR not intention of AU dean's letter

When Auburn University Dean of Students Johnny Green wrote a letter to all students asking them not to boo players during today’s LSU-Auburn football game, red flags immediately sailed high.

The letter, which spread like wildfire through the university and the national press, basically called its students out for showing disregard for its own players. Without the letter, the issue would not be known nationally.

We guarantee it will be a topic for conversation this morning on ESPN’s GameDay. With the national spotlight on Auburn, this type of publicity is not what the university needs. What this has done is given the pundits ammunition to slam the university’s fan base, in this case the students, into the ground.

These are young men playing a game to the best of their abilities. Is booing going to encourage them to try harder? Surely, booing will not encourage Tommy Tuberville to scrap the spread offense. Poor results over time might do that. We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully not. would do that. And what kind of message does booing send recruits sitting in the stadium? These are recruits Auburn hopes to lure into signing scholarships and succeeding with in the future. Booing won’t exactly turn them on to Auburn.

Green’s good intent wasn’t a good PR move, but it’s an issue that must be addressed nationally. The letter might be a PR disaster, but PR isn't Green's main goal. Educating students is. And that includes educating them in the right and the wrong way to represent the university. For that reason, we believe his intent was spot on, even if the execution wasn't.

Auburn has a history of wearing the national spotlight well and treating its opponents with class. But booing isn’t just an Auburn problem. It’s a national problem and is just one of the less destructive behaviors of boorish fans from coast to coast, which have been known to throw bottles at opposing teams, rock team buses and even use physical violence at times.

This behavior isn’t limited to students. It happens at professional events too, and it tarnishes the game. That’s what it is, right? A game?

And here we have the dean of students at Auburn, trumpeting the cause for good sportsmanship, specifically booing. Green’s statement should be used as a hallmark for college football fans. For a school’s dean to make an attempt to educate students to conduct themselves with class and be good ambassadors of the university, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Even with the bad publicity, which was unavoidable, the intent was good.

We encourage Auburn and LSU fans attending today’s game to show good sportsmanship and conduct themselves in a manner that best represents their university. There are far too many examples of bad behavior in recent years at many universities. Green was right to remind Auburn students to be above that.