Some SDSU Fans Want to See Coach Get Bagged

It’s come to this. The latest rage in fashion. Straight from an inglorious beginning a few years back in New Orleans, if I know my haute couture.

It has to do with what to wear to a San Diego State basketball game, or what not to be caught without.

Picture Joe Fan sitting at the dining room table, contemplating what to do on a Saturday night. It finally comes to him.

“Dear,” he would say, “let’s go see San Diego State play basketball.”

“Oh my,” whined dear, “I can’t do that. I don’t have a bag to wear.”

This actually happened in a San Diego household one night this week. The couple involved told me the story, thinking it both humorous and appropriate. They cringed when I told them it was an anecdote I might find useful, and pleaded that I not use their names.

“After all,” I was told, “the idea of wearing bags on our heads is to keep us anonymous. What would the neighbors think? We could lose our jobs if our bosses found out we were even thinking of going to an Aztec basketball game. We are expected to have much better judgment and taste.”

They chose instead to stay home and watch Mr. Ed on their VCR.

However, my obligation to stay up to date with fashion caused me to pay a visit to the Sports Arena to watch San Diego State play United States International University Thursday. A much better attraction was playing up the hill in Alcala Park, where the University of San Diego was entertaining Loyola Marymount, but I realized that Gentleman’s Quarterly would not be interested in fanatical students with their faces painted blue and white.

I was interested in folks who deigned not to show their faces at all.

I wanted to see bag heads.

The stands were so sparsely occupied that I didn’t know who was more interesting, the folks with the bags on their heads or the folks sitting bare-faced naked for all the world to see. I mused that I never thought I would come to consider the displaying of two eyes, a nose and a mouth to be a form of frontal nudity.

It should be noted that these bag heads were not exactly in the majority. As the players were being introduced, perhaps six of them were sitting in the lower rows of Section 12. They looked grim, somewhat like creatures from a Grade B movie stalking nervous baby sitters.

Of course, how could they look anything but grim? After all, they do not cut smiles in these bags. Only holes for the eyes. The idea is to see, as painful as that might be, without being seen.

As the players were being introduced, one fellow--I think it was a fellow--was holding a newspaper in front of his face. Maybe he was checking his stock in some paper products company, confident this rush on paper sacks would drive his fortunes upward. When I looked up moments later, he/she too was wearing a bag on his/her head.

With the game under way, I pondered the origins of this means of expressing derision or embarrassment with a collection of athletes. I think it began in New Orleans, when the Saints were known as the Aints. Since the Saints have almost always been the Aints, I would guess that bags are hard to find thereabouts in the fall. I have also seen bag heads in Indianapolis, where the Colts are usually Dolts.

However, this phenomenon is new in San Diego. As woeful as they always were, the Clippers never played to bag heads . . . at least I don’t think they did. I do not think the most pitiful Padres looked up in the stands and saw bagged heads giving them that wide-eyed stare of disapproval.

Thus, it would seem that the SDSU basketball team is special, in its own reluctant way. It went into the Thursday night game with a record of 2-16, the last 10 of those losses coming in succession.

On this occasion, that losing streak seemed to be in jeopardy. One more loss would enable the Aztecs to tie their all-time record for consecutive defeats, but the opposition was “only” USIU. The Aztecs had dispatched their neighbors from Scripps Ranch by margins of 38 and 45 points in their last two meetings.

I sensed the bags would soon be coming off.

It did not happen. It quickly became apparent that this USIU team was quite capable of beating this SDSU team. I looked across and there were nine bag heads, three of them with faces that made them look like grotesque warriors preparing for some ritualistic dance . . . perhaps at halftime.

When an Aztec player soared for a slam dunk near the end of the first half, I had a split second to contemplate that this might cause a turnaround in their fortunes. He missed, the ball sticking temporarily between the rim and the backboard.

The crowd gasped, and I saw two more guys reach hurriedly under their seats and pull their paper bags into place over their heads.

USIU led, 45-34.

Moments later, another fan scurried down the aisle with a bag in hand. I don’t know if he had hastily bought it at a concession stand or raced down the street to a market or simply arrived late from a biology lab. Regardless, he was bagged before he hit his seat--maybe in more ways than one.

It was now becoming obvious that USIU, of all people, was going to stretch the SDSU losing streak to 11.

However, it was bothering me that this phenomenon was manifesting itself at a college game. These are kids. In fact, SDSU does not have a senior on the roster. These are really kids. It somehow seemed different to protest the ineptitude of a bunch of calloused professionals earning six-figure salaries.

It turned out the “protest” was not directed at the players.

“Watch us,” said bag-wearing Jim McReynolds, a junior business major. “You’ll see that we’re cheering. We’re supporting the team.”

Alas, they are not supporting Coach Smokey Gaines.

“We’re just making a statement,” said bag-wearing Bill Phillips, a senior journalism major. “If enough people wear these bags, maybe they’ll fire Smokey.”

I don’t know exactly whom “they” might be, but I suspect President Thomas Day and Athletic Director Fred Miller likely would qualify. I looked around the stands for them, which was easy to do, there being so few faces to scan.

They were not there, unless, of course, they were wearing bags.