People boo at football games. That’s sports.

Ruin the fans’ dream season, get booed. Lose them their fantasy game that week, that’s a boo for you.

But air out your grievances about the booing in a post-game interview, expect even more booing.

Don La Greca, co-host on the Michael Kay Show on ESPN Radio 98.7 FM and the YES Network, encouraged booing of one player on his home team, former Alabama standout and current New York Giants offensive tackle Evan Neal.

Expressing disappointment after a recent Giants loss, Neal had said to NJ.com, “Why would a lion concern himself with the opinion of a sheep? The person that’s commenting on my performance, what does he do? Flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere?”

Neal later apologized. “I am wrong for lashing out at the fans who are just as passionate and frustrated as I am,” he wrote in a statement. “I let my frustrations in my play + desire to win get the best of me. I had no right to make light of anyone’s job and I deeply regret the things I said.”

The apology didn’t sit well with La Greca.

“I’d cut his ass. I would! How dare you? How dare you? These people pay your salary,” La Greca said in the rant.

“What, you’re so much better? I’d rather have a guy that’s flipping hamburgers block than your piece of garbage ass. Who the hell are you to talk to fans like that, you piece of garbage? I hate when players do that. You’re not above us. What, because you happen to play a sport, you’re better than me? You’re better than the people who pay your salary?

“These Giant fans were here before you, and they’ll be here after your sorry ass is cut. What a piece of human trash. And I don’t want to hear some apology. I don’t want to hear, “Oh, I was taken out of context.’ Done. Done. I would cut his fat ass!”

La Greca then implored fans to boo Neal, even if they see him in public and off of the playing field. “You should boo him,” he said. “If you see him in the mall at Willowbrook, boo his ass. If you see him in the DMV, boo him. Don’t stop booing him. If he goes to the Pro Bow, boo him. If he wins the Super Bowl, boo his sorry ass.”

Hear the rant below…

What would it take for you to boo your favorite team? Falling short of championship expectations? An upset loss to a “cupcake” opponent? A player saying something like Neal did about the Alabama fan base?

Alabama fans generally love their team and almost universally support the players no matter what. But we’ve heard boos in Bryant-Denny Stadium before, and not just when coaches like Tommy Tuberville wagged four fingers on his way out of an Iron Bowl win or when opposing teams interrupt the Tide runout with grand entrances of their own.

Bama fans have booed their own. I’ve seen and heard it with my own eyes and ears. One notable instance: The 2000 homecoming loss to Central Florida wherein the Golden Knights hit a late field goal to upset the Tide during a disastrous season that had lofty expectations following an SEC Championship in 1999. Andrew Zow had four interceptions. Bama lost 40-38. Fans booed.

Eight years later, 11 games into Nick Saban’s first season as the Crimson Tide head coach, Louisiana-Monroe did the impossible — or, the somewhat unlikely — shocking Alabama in a 21-14 game that drew its share of moaning and groaning from the Bryant-Denny crowd, especially as the clock hit zero and the head coaches ran toward midfield for the post-game handshake.

Even in 2023 — after Saban buried that ULM loss under six national championships, four Heisman winners and countless other program records — we heard a smattering of boo-birds during the first half of the Ole Miss game, which the Tide won after dominating the second half. But a pedestrian offensive performance during the first two quarters meant some fans couldn’t help but outwardly express their own frustration.

In fact, the angry sports man with the microphone makes this much sense: Fans have some right to boo, for a few reasons. They invest a lot in football. Their money, their time, their weekends, their identity, their self worth. Doesn’t spending hundreds (really, thousands some cases) of dollars entitle them to share their two cents when things don’t go their way, depending on the circumstances? I suppose it depends on where they direct their vitriol. Launching profanity-laced tirades at student-athletes does nobody any good, least of all the fan. Just makes you look foolish.

Then-Alabama head coach Mike DuBose publicly asked fans to redirect their anger at him, not the players, after that UCF loss in 2000. “They can boo me. And they should boo me,” he said. “But they need to make sure that they can do it in a way that the players don’t think that they’re booing the players.”

Sixteen years ago, when he was 40, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy famously took up for his players in the face of media criticism in a viral post-game rant. Like DuBose, Gundy passionately insisted upon taking the brunt of the heat, in lieu of players having to shoulder it.

During his weekly radio show before the Texas A&M game, Nick Saban addressed fan criticism of players and coaches when things don’t go well for their team. “I wouldn’t want to coach any place where people didn’t have high expectations and they didn’t care,” Saban said. “I try not to be defined by what other people think or what they say in terms of the kind of person I am or the kind of coach I am or how we work we players, and that I respond to any of that stuff, doesn’t affect me because I’m not on social media. I don’t hear it, I don’t see it, and I just want to do a good job of helping our players get ready for the game. And I know that if we don’t play good and something that we do doesn’t work, we will be criticized. That’s a given. Sometimes we’ll get criticized when we win, too, which I get that. But I’m our biggest critic.”

Saban emphasized the players are amateur athletes who do not deserve the same scrutiny that professionals receive. “They’re not pros,” he said. They’re college, young people who go to school. They got other things in their life. They’ve got family. They work hard in football. They spend a lot of time, and everybody should appreciate what they try to do to be successful. And when we don’t have success, guess who feels the worse. The players and the coaches. As bad as the fans think they feel in terms of how they want to criticize somebody, nobody feels worse than the players. Nobody feels worse than the coaches and everybody who’s working hard to try to get them to get it right, because it’s what we do. It’s our goal in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish and what we’re trying to do, and it’s disappointing when you come up short.”

So when they give you permission, should fans even boo the coaches? Lord knows we’ve heard it. Attending games as a kid in Bryant-Denny Stadium, I heard fans absolutely rip the staff, from head coaches like DuBose and Dennis Franchione to their assistants like Carl Torbush, Joe Kines and anyone whose who let down at least one aggrieved Alabama fan in the west upper deck. Friends and family still refer to that man as “Torbush!” after the sweat and spit he spent on a defensive coordinator who left 21 years ago.

It’s conditional. Former Alabama punter JK Scott put it succinctly in 2017. “It’s really not unconditional love. I mean, it isn’t,” Scott said. “A lot of times when fans love you, it’s because you’re doing well for the team. And I’m not trying to call out our fans, but there’s a lot of times when the team doesn’t do well, and the fans don’t support us. There’s a lot of times when the team does great, and the fans are your best friend. But then there are some fans that are the really loyal Alabama fans. Those are few. Those are the fans that really actually try and build relationships with the team, like actually talk to you and stuff. Those are very few. I don’t know a whole lot of them, but those are some good people.”

Which type of fan are you? If Alabama falls short of their goals this season, if they lose another game and essentially play their way out of playoff contention, will you boo them? If and when Jalen Milroe throws another interception, does he deserve the boos? Does Saban? What if they vented about you (which Saban has), as Evan Neal did after a tough loss?

It’s football. It’s sports. Booing has always come with the territory. Losses stink. Sometimes, they even hurt. But never forget: It’s football.