Eastern Kentucky’s Marie Carpenter gave “the finger” to a group of swimmers from Eastern Illinois during Monday night’s women’s basketball game between the Panthers and Colonels.

While waiting for the referee to hand her the ball for an inbounds pass a few feet in front of where the swimmers were sitting, Carpenter put one hand behind her back, curled her wrist and made a fist with all of her fingers except the middle one, which was pointed sharply toward the sky.

I was sitting at the end of the press table, a few feet to the right of where Carpenter stood, and her gesture could not have been more obvious for those who were paying attention.

When I saw it, I was stunned. I’ve never seen anything like it at a game I was covering and I’ve been the women’s basketball beat writer for three years.

There wasn’t a huge reaction from the swimmers other than a slight roar from the group of five or six, but maybe the roar wasn’t even necessary.

The war between the fans and Carpenter was over. Fans win.

The swimmers were in Carpenter’s head, and worse she let them know they were.

Carpenter strutted around the court most of the game with a cocky smirk and tattoos up and down her right arm, so the swimmers continually shouted at her:

“Hey, Lil Weezy,” they shouted. “Lil Wayne!”

At one point the music from Jeopardy! was playing in the arena and one cleaver swimmer shouted, “Answer? Lil Weezy. Wager? Young Money!”

The swimmers weren’t doing anything wrong. They were just being passionate fans, trying to help the Eastern women’s basketball team stay undefeated in Lantz Arena by heckling and annoying the opposition.

Clearly it worked, and it raised some questions.

Seeing a player raise her middle finger to opposing fans made me think about the effects of a rowdy home crowd on a visiting team.

Time and time again, Eastern head coach Brady Sallee says Lantz Arena has great fans at the games. Multiple players said they feed off the crowd’s energy during games.

But I’ve always wondered what effect the same crowd has on the visiting team.

I always thought the affects were minimal, until Carpenter did what she did.

Sometimes I can tell a player is frustrated and distracted on the court, but I would never expect them to take their anger out on the fans, and let fans win.

I suppose this shows the effectiveness of Lantz Arena’s crowds and the truth behind what Sallee and his players have said many times.

The crowd affects the players, in good ways and bad.

This time around, the fans in Lantz Arena got inside the head of Carpenter and it affected her play so much that she felt it necessary to make an inappropriate gesture.

As the saying goes, Carpenter left it all out on the floor Monday night, including some of her dignity. And we all know what they say about dignity…

Your dignity is inside you. Nobody can take something away from you that you don’t give to them.

Carpenter must not have gotten that memo.

Alex McNamee can

be reached at 581-7942

or admcnamee@eiu.edu.