02-03-2022, 05:51 AM
The thread at the old forum linked to something that traced "Who Dat" back to minstrel shows. Pretty sure that means that it should be cancelled. Anyway, that use is irrelevant.
Some high school team in LA did use "Who Dat" sometime around '79. Again, irrelevant. It was a local news story and that's it.
"Who Dey" was first mentioned in the papers around the time of the '82 Super Bowl. Glenn Rutherford wrote this about it in The Louisville Courier-Journal on 25 Jan 1982.
He doesn't cite any source for this story. It's interesting that the Bengals didn't play at Chicago in '81. They played at Chicago in December of '80. Even though the Bengals had a bad season in '80, they had won two in a row at that point. If they were diehard enough to travel to Chicago for a game there's no reason to think they wouldn't try to come up with a cheer. Who wants to be yet another "Here we go SPORTS TEAM, here we go?" And that would have given it the entire following '81 season to catch on at the stadium before the Super Bowl.
Some high school team in LA did use "Who Dat" sometime around '79. Again, irrelevant. It was a local news story and that's it.
"Who Dey" was first mentioned in the papers around the time of the '82 Super Bowl. Glenn Rutherford wrote this about it in The Louisville Courier-Journal on 25 Jan 1982.
Quote:When you think about it most cheers at sporting events are senseless. So it stands to reason that the Cincinnati Bengals "Who Dey" cheer doesn't make any sense.
Unless you're a Bengals fan, of course.
The "Who Dey" cheer has been ubiquitous in Cincinnati ever since the Bengals started winning. Radio stations are playing it department stores are displaying it and everybody's taking credit for it.
Who Dey.
Who Dey.
Who Dey think Dey [sic] beat dem Bengals.
Roughly translated, it means, "Who do they think they are, thinking they can beat the Bengals?"
And regardless of what the radio stations and local newspapers say, the cheer was born in Crowley's Highland House Cafe on Cincinnati's Mount Adams.
Frankje Bennett thought it up and introduced it to the rest of the guys during a Highland House football trip to Chicago. Soon the fans in Riverfront Stadium section 159 were shouting it; and it wasn't long before the rest of the stadium crowd was yelling it too.
So, the "Who Dey" signs and the "Who Dey" cheers were everywhere yesterday especially at the Highland House Cafe.
He doesn't cite any source for this story. It's interesting that the Bengals didn't play at Chicago in '81. They played at Chicago in December of '80. Even though the Bengals had a bad season in '80, they had won two in a row at that point. If they were diehard enough to travel to Chicago for a game there's no reason to think they wouldn't try to come up with a cheer. Who wants to be yet another "Here we go SPORTS TEAM, here we go?" And that would have given it the entire following '81 season to catch on at the stadium before the Super Bowl.
