I have always been of the belief that despite being a USC student and diehard fan that I have the capability of rationally analyzing a sporting event even if the Trojans are in the middle of it. Of course, I have my biases, but don’t all writers? Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel is a Northwestern graduate, SI.com’s Arash Markazi is a USC alumnus, and ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski is a Tennessee grad. So do the simple facts that I happen to take classes at the University of Southern California and root for the Trojans on Saturdays thus bar me from expressing opinions on the inner-workings of college football? I like to think that it doesn’t, but if you’re an editor at the Bruins Nation, it apparently makes me unreadable.

To put this all into proper context, I happened to read an article at the Bruins Nation.com earlier this morning entitled: “Remembering Those Images For Next 370 Days” in which it discusses how close the Bruins were to overtaking the Trojans in last night’s 28-7 defeat while optimistically looking forward to next year’s contest at the Rose Bowl. After reading the post, I took offense to the writer’s tendency to look back at the game and suggest that UCLA would have easily won provided certain events did not occur such as Kevin Prince’s interception in the first half and the generally poor officiating. Therefore, I decided to post my thoughts on the article in the comments section:

Whenever I read game recaps here, especially when it comes to USC-UCLA contests, it is flooded with the word “if” throughout. I mean seriously, get over it:

“If not for Prince’s ill advised throw the score would have been tied at 0-0 at half time (at least 3-0 in our favor if the referees weren’t persuaded by the Pom Pom’s lobbying and the homer announcers egging it on television).”

Ya, well if Pete Rose didn’t gamble on the Reds and baseball, he’d probably be in the hall-of-fame. If Texas didn’t have Vince Young in the 2006 Rose Bowl, USC would probably still be selling three peat national title shirts in the student bookstore. If Kobe and Shaq hadn’t argued as much and had become good friends instead, the Lakers probably would have a few more championship banners hanging in the rafters at Staples Center.

The fact is that none of that happened. Prince made an errant throw and he paid for it. Just because you don’t like the outcome and it may have been a boneheaded play, does not give you the right to totally discredit it. It’s a completely faulty argument and silly to rationalize a recap on it. ‘If he didn’t make that dumb play, UCLA would have still been it.” Well, of course they would still be in it.

But the fact of the matter is that it happened and you need to move on. As for the poor officiating give me a break. The Trojans had 12 penalties compared to the Bruins’ 5. UCLA lost this football game because they turned the football over. Period. You cannot go on the road, particularly in a rivalry game, and expect to win when your offense turns the ball over 4 times. It’s just not going to happen.

Just two minutes, after posting this I received a message that read “you are banned from Bruins Nation: you can browse the blog, but you can’t participate.” (note: I was not able to recover the full entity of my comments post because it was immediately removed from the site) A few minutes following, the site editor Nestor quickly posted another message:

Attention Trojan Jackholes posting in this thread
Read the byline of this blog (if you can read):

“Blog Of The Bruins, By The Bruins, For The Bruins”

So get lost. We don’t want you here in the coming days.

Well, I would normally address Nestor or a similar site editor via private e-mail after a banning like this, but I feel this quick tendency of Bruins Nation to ban people with dissenting opinions needs to be brought to the forefront of the blogosphere, especially at this particular moment. Nowhere in the course of my argument did I unreasonably criticize UCLA for the sake of “smack talk.” I merely sought to raise the point that too often fans, particularly those hailing from Westwood, cast aside a loss because of a few inopportune events. (In this case, Prince’s interceptions and a few “non-calls” by the officials.) But in the end, the bottom line is that if you want to post at BN, you must be in total agreement with popular held beliefs by Bruin fans:

Any insult or any comment that would be perceived as an insult, attack or a lecture to the moderators could be subjected deletion, warning or subsequent banning. The moderators reserve the right to delete any post or comment that is deemed not appropriate for Bruins Nation. Also, we will not tolerate any lectures to moderators on how they should run this community.

Also note (Trojans pay close attention to this) if you insult UCLA or anyone/anything associated with UCLA you could be subjected to immediate banning. There are lots of message boards to engage in cheap trash/smack talk.

After reading my remarks thoroughly, I am still searching for the part, where I deliberately and viciously attacked the site editors. Yes, I did raise a somewhat controversial opinion in regards to how the UCLA community should be handling the loss to USC, but I failed to deliberately insult UCLA or its fans for the sole purpose of inciting a flame war in the comments section. Look, my sole intent was to raise a viewpoint, and within minutes, the thought police Nestor removed the comment and had me banned from the site because my opinions did not conform to the Bruins Nation’s commonly accepted beliefs.

At the end of the day, a sports blog is supposed to not only provide news regarding a particular team or sport but also foster structured and rational debate regarding a particular set of issues. This circumstance suggests to me that UCLA fan blogs such as Bruins Nation are not willing to accept that notion. In fact, they are eager to go about and do whatever is necessary to dispel of it and promote their own agenda – UCLA athletics. While I understand that a fan blog would be eager to highlight its own team, it is also important to realize that it needs to be open to dissenting opinions provided they are articulated in a coherent and reasonable manor. It has become quite evident that BN is not open to this concept as evident by their banning and public embarrasment of me (see: the Trojan jackhole reference and if you can read inference).

So, in regards to the future, I implore blogs and websites with similar community guidelines as Bruins Nation, to lift these restrictions and allow for a greater debate among fans. Because at the end of the day, there is no point of a  website’s existence if it does not allow for opinions to be shared, as fans should not and eventually cannot be silenced.

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