Copyright Cable News Network
It’s a craze sweeping college football stadiums around the nation. Bare-chested men, twirling their shirts over their heads. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them in places. It started during another dismal loss in a dismal year for Oklahoma State. The viral images from “Section 2-No-Shirty-1” inspired legions of copycats. Colorado, UCLA, Utah, Clemson, Indiana, North Texas, Iowa State and more. With the calendar flipping into November, there’s no sign that the shirts are going to stay on for the rest of the season. And it all started with a bet that turned into a viral moment. Oklahoma State fan Trent Eaton told USA Today that his sister said she’d give him $10 if he walked to an empty section of T. Boone Pickens Stadium during the October 11 loss to Houston, took off his shirt and waved it. What happened next is among the most indelible images of this college football season. One fan joined Eaton. Then another. Then another. Then hundreds more. A steady stream of dudes heading to Section 231 to take off their shirts and whirl them over their heads like helicopters. The OK State Cowboys got smoked in that game. They had just fired coach Mike Gundy and the program was in the dumps. But for a glorious period, all that mattered were the dudes being dudes. “I want to say how awesome it was… I don’t know who those kids were up there with their shirts off, but it was awesome,” said interim coach Dough Meacham after the game. He added, “It was phenomenal because it’s human nature to pout and go home when things aren’t going the way you hoped, our guys definitely felt it and you don’t see that too often. … I appreciate our students hanging in there with us and giving us something to play for.” OK State linebacker Malik Charles added, “I saw it at first with the one or two guys up there, then it was three. I put my helmet on and was about to go on the field, and the next thing I know, it’s (the videoboard) is saying world record, and I was like, ‘Man there’s a lot of people up there!’ It’s honestly really cool, it’s nice to know that we still have a lot of supporters and a lot of people that come out and love Cowboy Football.” The videos, showing a steady stream of men walking to the section of the stadium now officially christened “2-No-Shirty-1” and then joyously taking their tops off, went wild on social media. Since then, fans from around the country have followed the Cowboy fans’ lead to entertain themselves in the waning stages of blowouts. Colorado fans could have chosen to sulk when their team went down by multiple scores to Arizona on Saturday. Instead, tarps off. Boise State fans could have been upset when they were upset at home by Fresno State as their season continued to slide away from them. Instead, tarps off. Clemson fans needed to help rally their Tigers against Duke as the Blue Devils were in the lead. How’d they do it? Tarps off. Sometimes victorious fans are doing it too, and not exactly in the balmiest places. Oregon, Indiana, Florida State, Georgia Tech and North Texas fans have all gotten in on it in the last few weeks. The best thing about college football is the sense of community the sport inspires. The ritual of gathering on the campus of old alma mater a few Saturdays a year to sing the same songs, cheer the same cheers and lament the same old shortcomings with tens of thousands of other folks with the same experiences – it’s unlike anything else in sports. That sense of community is how Section 2-No-Shirty-1 began – a bunch of guys having a laugh amid their football team’s disastrous season. That sense of joy and community, and the truly incredible sight of people flocking to certain sections so they can join in the fun, is a sign of college football’s importance at a time of reckoning for the sport’s big-money problems.
