And “all we got” are these lousy T-shirts

It was a great season, and a close finish, but once again Pitt was stuck at the Sweet 16. In… It was a great season, and a close finish, but once again Pitt was stuck at the Sweet 16. In spite of last night’s loss, the men’s basketball team played consistently throughout the season — and will only improve next year. Let’s go Pitt!

But before we become observers of, rather than participants in, March Madness, we should reevaluate some of the slogans Pitt uses, especially “We all we got!”

Apparently, we are not the only school to be all we got. The University of Florida also is all they got, and used it as a slogan until they were upset by Manhattan in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Shirts were printed, spirit shouted and “We all we got!” was their rallying cry.

And it was ours, too, unfortunately.

This is not to cast any disparagements on the team. The Pitt men’s basketball team is the quintessential Pittsburgh team — strong defense, team players and a perpetual underdog status. During the current season, most of the Panthers’ games have been riveting, and the team needed something as a battle cry.

“We all we got!” shouldn’t have been it. Aside from it being shared with Florida, the slogan, catchy as it is, makes us look, frankly, stupid. It’s a spoken expression, from many songs, but looked, well, silly printed across the back of T-shirts on national television.

And if we’re a tournament team, we shouldn’t look silly.

As a chant, it works. It’s loud, percussive and hammers the point home — much like P-E-N-N S-T Sucks. And the spirit of the phrase is certainly alive in the team and in Pittsburgh.

Newspapers are sticklers for grammar, and we’re no exception. But objecting to “We all we got!” is not a mere grammatical quibble.

It’s about the image the University projects for itself. Pitt has invested an enormous amount of time and money in making itself a major research and academic institution. Printing ungrammatical T-shirt undercuts the image of both the University and its athletes that Pitt worked hard to present.

And it perpetuates stereotypes about athletes. In recent years, much fuss has been made about scholar-athletes, especially UConn player Emeka Okafor, who was named Big East Scholar-Athlete of the Year for 2002-03. If Pitt’s athletes are to be taken seriously as scholars, the slogan should be dropped from shirts and jerseys next year.

Would we all gather behind “Yinz can’t beat us” or “This needs done?” These would only reinforce popular stereotypes about Pittsburgh, and we wouldn’t scrawl them on posters or print them on jerseys. Similarly, “We all we got!” should go.

There’s a serious difference between written and spoken communication. “We all we got!” is good as a chant, but it doesn’t translate well to print.

We’re going to come back next year, and hopefully with a better slogan.

Lastly, why improve on the original?

Let’s go Pitt!