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The San Diego State University student cheering section known as “The Show” was the focus of a firestorm on Twitter last week after the group’s Twitter account took shots at a UNM freshman basketball player about his emergency appendectomy in Australia.
Cullen Neal, son of UNM’s first-year head basketball coach Craig Neal and a newcomer to the Lobo squad, was released from a Sydney hospital Wednesday and arrived in Albuquerque with his family Friday.
A CBS Sports analyst tweeted news of the younger Neal’s release, to which The Show’s Twitter account replied, “fingers crossed for further infection.”
@TheShowSDSU also tweeted, “We’re not saying we’re rooting for the death of Cullen Neal we’re just saying that we are not God and we are at peace with whatever happens,” as well as, “Dear Mictlantecuhtli, Aztec God of Death, May your will be done in the life and death of Cullen Neal. amen.”
SDSU’s mascot is the Aztec.
The tweets were later deleted, but several national media outlets, including NBC Sports and The Sporting News, posted images of them on their websites.
The Show later apologized on Twitter for the comments, saying the group realized the tweets were inappropriate and that the individual who posted the tweets no longer has access to the account. The group said it hopes Cullen makes a speedy recovery.
Craig Neal, who does not have a Twitter account and heard about The Show’s tweets through second-hand channels, regarded the tweets as “not a big deal” and said he and his son are both accustomed to negative comments from opposing teams’ fans. Cullen played for the Eldorado High School basketball team that won the Class 5A state championship in 2012.
“It’s just one fan, and I’ve dealt with envy and jealousy before,” Craig said. “It’s nothing Cullen hadn’t dealt with before for a long time. He has big boy pants, so we just don’t really have much to comment on.”
Emails to The Show seeking additional comment were not answered.
The UNM basketball team went on an 11-day trip in Australia, departing Aug. 2 and returning Wednesday, and captured three exhibition wins over the Sydney Kings, Kilsyth Cobras and the Gold Coast All-Stars. NCAA rules allow college teams to engage in an international exhibition tour every four years.
The team announced Aug. 4 that Cullen was admitted to a Sydney hospital for appendicitis, where he remained for the remainder of the trip. Craig said his son’s appendix was perforated and infected in four quadrants of his abdomen.
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Upon the family’s return to Albuquerque, Craig said his son is still feeling weak following the procedure. Cullen, he said, has lost weight and has a long way to go before he’s prepared for the upcoming basketball season. Whether Cullen will redshirt or play his first season will be determined later, Craig said.
Mike May, SDSU’s associate athletic director of media relations, said The Show is an independent group not officially affiliated with the university’s athletic department, though The Show’s leadership met with the athletic department to discuss the tweets.
May said the individual responsible for the tweets had his football and men’s basketball season tickets revoked and is banned indefinitely from attending SDSU home games.
UNM Athletic Director Paul Krebs posted on Twitter account Thursday that he received an apology from San Diego State, but said it wasn’t necessary since the school was not responsible for comments from a “sick fan.” Craig said he also received the apology, which acknowledges that San Diego State took the incident seriously.
In response to The Show’s comments, UNM junior guard Hugh Greenwood tweeted, “kiss the rings,” referring to the four straight Mountain West Conference regular-season titles and back-to-back MWC tournament crowns won by the Lobos.
Steve Robert, who serves as vice president of the UNM Howl Raisers, said he learned about The Show’s Twitter comments after a discussion on the radio and found them later online. He said it was sad for The Show to take that route in its comments.
“The first tweet? Eh, it was somewhat harmless,” he said. “But the second and third? Completely — that’s just completely out of line. They’re a student organization that’s supposed to be holding up some kind of tradition.”
The Show is known for being among the most raucous student sections of the Mountain West Conference and has been credited for creating the giant head cutout phenomenon seen at many college basketball games nationwide.
At UNM, the Howl Raisers is the student organization that coordinates fan activities and spirit interactions during Lobo games. According to a March 27 release regarding the pursuit of new officers, the group is one of the largest chartered organizations on campus with more than 1,000 members.
The group has a presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and Roberts said it has a social media director that oversees all three accounts. Six Howl Raisers officers also have access to those accounts.
“We pretty much as a group will decide what to put on and what we don’t,” Roberts said, adding that anyone who posts inappropriate content will be disciplined and possibly removed from the organization. “We don’t want to make the University look bad.”
UNM’s coaching staff had not allowed its players to use a team-wide Twitter account until this summer. Craig said the Twitter policy for his team’s account is simple: one inappropriate tweet and the team will again be barred from using it. Several teams have their own Twitter accounts managed by their respective sports information directors.
Craig credited UNM Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Frank Mercogliano for a decent job managing his team’s account.
Though the coach is not on Twitter himself, he said he will have Mercogliano put information on Twitter when Neal wants it posted.
“It can be good, but it also can be bad,” Craig said of Twitter. “It’s kind of like the 12 o’clock curfew. Not a lot of good things happen after midnight.”
