What is it about buying a ticket to a sporting event that fans think give them the right to say whatever they want?

It's a strange phenomenon. People would never walk up to a 6-foot-8, 255-pound behemoth on the street and tell him just exactly what they think of his mother, but at a basketball game it's second nature.

The verbal abuse is usually pretty unorganized, just a couple of non-descript yahoos hopped up on feelings of anonymity and superiority. You won't find a university that condones these activities, but you will find universities that don't do nearly enough to stop them.

As it stands, Notre Dame is one of those universities.

Last week I was in South Bend to watch Marquette's men's basketball team beat the Fighting Irish 71-64. Afterwards, I grabbed an orange flyer that is distributed to Notre Dame's student section, the Leprechaun Legion. It was called a "jeer card," and the contents were nothing short of disgusting.

The card included racial epithets directed at guard David Cubillan (who is Venezuelan) and forward Joseph Fulce. It attacked family members of guards Dominic James and Wesley Matthews and forward Lazar Hayward.

I won't repeat the phrases used. In fact, I worry I've already lent the cowards who print this garbage too much credence. Just know the statements were completely inappropriate.

"Any reasonable person would say that," said Dan Gavitt, the associate commissioner of the Big East Conference.

Gavitt said the Big East doesn't set the line for its members — the responsibility falls on the individual institutions.

The line isn't tough to spot, either. Take guard Dominic James' "jeer" for example. The first few sentences read: "Has a tattoo of himself. Who is he Steve-o? Next to his tat it says: 'God given talent' and 'size doesn't matter.' Keep telling yourself that bud. It matters."

Stop right there. The line hasn't been crossed. In fact, the line hasn't really been approached. But the knuckleheads that organize the Legion couldn't leave it there. They had to sprint across, and in the next sentence, print the name of James' baby daughter.

Just for kicks, they published a picture of James and his daughter, implying that she was the product of a night out on the town.

In response James, for his part, stayed quite calm. Good for him. It isn't his job to get angry (it's mine).

"That's just taking it too far," he said. "That's no part of the game."

He's right. And the Leprechaun Losers have taken it even farther in the past. The jeer card for Notre Dame's game against South Carolina-Upstate on Nov. 16 included an excerpt from freshman guard Cameron Rousey's facebook page that used the "n-word." Apparently, the fact that Rousey himself used that language was enough justificiation.

"Sometimes students take the cheering a little too far," said Dennis Brown, Notre Dame's assistant vice president in the office of public affairs and communication.

Marquette has its own less-offensive version of the Leprechaun Legion — the Marquette Superfans. The Superfans still produce a "jeer-card" of sorts for each game, but are overseen by Brian Bowsher, the Marquette athletic department's assistant director of marketing. Bowsher must approve all content on the Superfans' jeer card.

While the Leprechaun Legion is an official special interest club at Notre Dame (just like the Superfans at Marquette), it doesn't have the same sort of review structure.

"The comments were inappropriate, and we plan to examine going forward how best to monitor the group's activities," Brown said. "We're going to speak with the leaders of the group and make some decisions for the future."

I'm not na've enough to think that Marquette opponents don't get it bad. I'd concede that some Marquette fans have said worse than the grenades lobbed by the wee folks in the leprechaun clan (who, no surprise, ignored e-mailed requests for an interview).

But the game changes when a university actually supports groups that encourage those idiotic fans. The university becomes the enablers of acts that, often times, they've promised to discourage.

And when that happens it's time for a university to take a step back and take a long, hard look at itself.

For you, Notre Dame, that time is now.