What an exciting and eventful ISU football and basketball season this has been. Not that there were not disappointing losses along the way, but also joyous victories, a bowl game and a trip to the NCAA tournament for the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

As I watched the games in Dayton, Ohio, a couple weeks ago, I was so proud of the Cyclone fans, band members, cheer squad, and dance team. I thought that they were the greatest fans in college basketball. 

The band was awesome. They were yelling their creative chants as the opposing team was shooting free throws, continuing to play loudly when it was definitely a home court advantage for Ohio State. When the camera angles were on the cheer squad they were always leading cheers. You could even hear “Cyclone Power” above all the other noise.

Imagine my surprise when I was reading a recent Ames Tribune editorial concerning the Iowa State-Kansas basketball game on Feb. 25. I think that article was a little harsh on the faithful ISU fans, singling out a few negative instances when there were over 15,000 fans there, let alone those watching on television.

There was a lot of hype leading up to that game. Iowa State almost beat Kansas — on their home court, no less — a month before; only to be beaten by a lucky shot at the end of regulation. 

The second meeting of these teams looked like maybe a victory for Iowa State, until the final minute when a referee made a bad call. Previous to that, a Kansas player did a dishonest act of raising his hand to take a foul that clearly should have been on a Kansas player that would have fouled out of the game. The final insult was the Kansas player running the length of the floor to get an uncontested dunk.

Of course the fans felt cheated and frustrated. To add insult to injury, the ISU student body had to apologize to coach Bill Self and the team!

Out of the thousands of great fans, the editorial had to single out the TWO fans that put statements on their Twitter accounts. I agree that they should not have done that. Under no circumstances should there ever be derogatory comments made about any person’s race, color, sexual orientation or beliefs.

I have never heard if the Ankeny man made any comments to Self, and if he did, what they were. Maybe he was telling Self that “it was a great game. Congratulations!”

If you want to pick on fans, go to the University of Wyoming. My husband and I were recently in Colorado and watched on TV a basketball game between Colorado State, coached by former ISU coach Larry Eustachy, and the University of Wyoming. 

I was watching Eustachy and was so happy that he got his life put back together and was coaching again. The next day I was reading about the game in a local newspaper and was appalled to read that the Wyoming fan section was yelling a chant, “alcoholic” at Eustachy and the team! Despicable! I did not read that an apology was issued.

Not that it makes it right, but the author of this editorial must not have ever gone to any away sporting events. I have. Opposing fans can be ruthless. Leaving a game, they never say anything nice, like “good game.” Does Missouri still have the nasty group known as “the Antlers”? That is only one of many examples.

I am proud to have been a Cyclone fan for 40 years. There will be rivalries between teams that make the games fun (at times, frustrating at others) and entertaining. There will continue to be missed calls, bad calls, no calls to go with the missed tackles, missed field goals, bobbled passes, unfortunate fouls and missed free throws that will throw the game into the loss column. ISU fans are still great. The marching band, pep band and all cheer squads will continue to work hard and impress us.

Only 144 days until football season starts! Go Cyclones!