As a Sports Information Assistant working for Ken Sweeten, the beat writer for women’s hockey, and occasional broadcaster of volleyball for WQAQ sports, I have been to field hockey and men’s and women’s soccer games, and even the Quinnipiac Invitational tennis tournament held during Sept. 22-24.
At each game (with the exception of a few men’s soccer games), I have noticed something, or rather the lack of it: the number of students.
I understand that women’s sports are not as popular as men’s, and I understand that soccer, cross country and tennis may not be the most desirable sports to come out to during the busy weeks or early on a weekend.
However, at most of the games, it disappoints me to see that it is mostly parents, or even worse, opponent’s fans coming to our home games and creating more noise than the home team fans.
Most of the teams are lucky to get 50 people at one of their games, and none of the above sports gets more than 300 for any game at any time.
Now I know what you’ll say. “Well, I want to go, but I’m too busy.” Or, “I forgot to get up for the 12 p.m. or 1 p.m. game.” Or the number one excuse, “Why should I go? The team stinks and they’ll lose anyway.”
All of these reasons are ridiculous.
First of all, the games never last more than two hours, and most of you would go to see men’s hockey or basketball games, which lasts at least two hours, if not longer.
Second, it is FREE to see these teams play. Larger universities such as Michigan or Penn State (I know, I lived at these places) will charge something for nearly all of their sporting events, and will often charge a lot for them.
Third, the games are not at unreasonable times. Yes, I admit that I miss Wednesday or Friday afternoon games because of class. I will also admit that I probably would enjoy the men’s basketball and hockey games more because the teams are at the top of the conferences and have more at stake in terms of national ranking.
But I still believe that as a student body, we should support all of our teams. All of them put in the effort and work that all other student athletes do. They should at least be respected enough by our student body to see some students at more games.
Who knows, maybe if the teams saw more students attend the games, the players might be more motivated to play harder, and then students won’t be able to say that they don’t want to go because they don’t win.
