Let me go on the record saying I don’t watch football.

I get it, though. I’m not like other weedy bookish types, who thumb their noses at ritualistic sports team worship.

I watched the Super-Bowl-that-shall-not-be-mentioned with my friends, we (they, mostly) yelled, cursed – Ted might’ve teared up a little at the end. I see nothing wrong with this. It’s a healthy obsession; it’s a religion without dogma.

You show up on Sunday – sometimes Monday and Thursday – and you pray. The services are grandiose, and sometimes there’s a half-time show. Your God smiles on you, and your team wins, or, he doesn’t; they lose. Was it your fault?

Maybe.

Maybe you should’ve helped that old lady across the street the other day. Perhaps you should’ve worn the same jersey you did when they won the playoffs. I guess you’ll just have to convert to the Church of Basketball for a while. O, mighty Celtics.

I don’t approve of zealotry, though.

Zealotry is staging an Inquisition; it’s beheading an infidel; it’s bludgeoning Giants fans with ice.

Eight UMass students were arrested Sunday night after the Super-Bowl-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, for fighting with cops and members of the Order of the Giants, though no property damage was reported. It’s certainly not the worst of the post-sporting event celebrations hosted by South West, but that’s not surprising considering University of Massachusetts Police officers over the past few years have had to put on riot gear almost as frequently as they gave speeding tickets.

This is where the healthy obsession becomes athletic-extremism. I get the face-painting thing, I dig smack talking for its literary value and I even get the yelling at the TV thing (I used to do that when I watched “Crossfire”).

But I don’t get rioting, which is itself a term that has come to imply any gathering on campus that consists of more than four homogenous team jerseys.

And that isn’t entirely unfounded, either. We have a reputation for rioting. UMass students need not be reminded of the 2004 riot after the Red Sox won the World Series, and the more recent riot after UMass football lost the IAA championship to Appalachian State.

(On a side note: Unruly sports fans need to learn a better way to articulate their feelings. You can’t tell the outcome of a sporting event by watching the riot afterward – everybody’s just throwing stuff, win or lose.)

This year’s Series and Super-Bowl-that-shall-not-be-mentioned saw improvements, but that’s due in large part to the fact that the administration and UMPD were ready way ahead of time. And to the fact that UMass students had seen the administration and UMPD react strongly – some have said overzealously – in the wake of the riot after the Appalachian State game.

But for the administration, UMPD and for us students, this shouldn’t be business as usual. Everyone jokes before big games about whether or not there’s going to be a riot. I saw someone at the Berkshire dining commons wearing a T-shirt that said, “UMass: It’s a Riot!” – which would’ve been hilarious if I wasn’t paying out of state tuition. We don’t want to be known as the school that habitually riots after the seventh inning stretch.

We used to be the Princeton Review’s No. 7 party school, and then lost that title, but managed to keep our appetite for destruction. I think we lost out priorities somewhere along the way. At most large college campuses, one need be careful of drunk drivers on the weekend, a saddening-enough prospect.

UMass is the only place you have to be sure to park your car somewhere it won’t get tipped by Red Sox Nation; make sure you have the right jersey on, too, lest you want to be crucified.

And to the Giants fans antagonizing the bereaved New Englanders this Sunday: I don’t advocate violence of any type, waterboarding included, but you almost deserved being pelted. I’m from Northern New Jersey – that’s the Giant’s diocese- but we’re guests here. Do not agitate the Pats fans.

Kidding aside, we need to reexamine the consequences of our actions. We’re faced with an administration that doesn’t listen sincerely to our demands, evidenced by the controversial honorary degree given to Andy Card and several grievances leading up to the student strike. The strike showed them that we could put our uncanny ability to form angry mobs to good use.

But why should they take seriously our demands about, say, more control over student space, when we don’t even respect each other’s right to it?

Sunday’s Super-Bowl-that-shall-not-be-mentioned was a step in the right direction; it proved less fervent than crusades past. But eight arrests, some assault and battery charges and a count of interfering with a police horse show that we still don’t know how to celebrate a win, or a loss.

Eli Manning was not one of those in Giants jerseys you pelted; Tom Brady could not hear your drunken Pats elegy; and we still make headlines for all the wrong reasons.

S.P. Sullivan is a Collegian editor. He can be reached at [email protected].