Saturday’s game against Alabama doesn’t just mark Nick Saban’s return to Tiger Stadium. Another important facet in LSU football will return to Death Valley — the “Oh-Wee-Oh” chant. Band officials met Tuesday and decided the student section’s post-touchdown behavior against Tulane was decent enough to earn back the once-banned chant for the game against the Crimson Tide.”The band staff thinks that the students showed that they could do it,” said Rob Dowie, Tiger Band drum major. “We’re willing to go out on a limb with it.”The revised version of the chant will replace the controversial “You suck” with “Tigers.”LSU cheerleaders and the Tiger Band will lead the audience in a rehearsal chant an hour and 10 minutes before kickoff so students can learn the new cheer, according to Student Government President Colorado Robertson. “We want the entire student section to be cohesive so we can have a powerful cheer against ‘Bama,” Robertson said. “We’re going to be the 12th man on the field.”Dowie said the cheer will still be monitored for indecent language. “That’s a deal breaker,” Dowie said. “The moment negative words are detected, we won’t play it anymore.”Dowie said the band members have wanted to play the chant for some time, but the students’ slurs prohibited it.”I don’t know a single member of the band who doesn’t want to play the chant,” Dowie said. “But the band isn’t allowed to solicit negative cheers. We can’t go into that territory. The dominant voice has to be positive.”Robertson said “Tigers” was chosen to make the transition back to use the chant easier. “We just thought that would be easiest to get that many people on the same page,” Robertson said. Jamie Mascari, cheerleading team captain, said the return of this chant will be essential for the match-up against Alabama. “This will allow students to cheer and stayed pumped up for longer after a touchdown,” Mascari said. “We really need students to stay excited for this whole game.”—-Contact Katie Kennedy at [email protected]
“Oh-Wee-Oh” back for Bama
November 5, 2008