Posts Tagged ‘Attendance’

Apparently, University of Tennessee students are getting a bit restless these days when it comes to the BasketVols—so restless, in fact, that they’ve decided en masse not to come to the games at all, and have chosen to stay home and take naps (or something along those lines).

According to Basilio only 312 students showed up for the Vols’ game against the Vanderbilt Commodores at the Tommy Bowl (a/k/a Thompson-Boling Arena).  Tennessee currently has nearly 30,000 students, so that adds up to around 1% of the total students bothered to come to the game.  Now admittedly, that game was played on Valentines Day, and maybe “love” was in the air, but only 312 students?  I know from my time on the Hill, there are usually plenty of undergraduates who don’t have dates at any given time (or ever, in the case of some folks).  Unlike football, students don’t have to get a ticket, and need only provide a valid student ID to get into the games, so the cost and annoyance argument is out the door.  Given the fact that students came in throngs last year, it appears that the students have simply gotten fickle and expect a little more from the program than what they are currently receiving.

So why have the students seemingly given up on this team?

I was a student at the University of Tennessee from 1994-1998.  When I arrived on campus as a freshman, the Vols were coming off their worst season in the history of the school.  The 1993-94 Vols won a grand total of 5 games under, then, coach Wade Houston who apparently did not even understand the rules of basketball.  Thus, my expectations were low when the 1994-95 season rolled around, despite the fact that Tennessee had a new head coach, Kevin O’Neill.  Still, I can say with conviction that I attended every home game that season and watched the Vols claw their way to an 11-16 record.

Great basketball, it was not.  Still, I went nonetheless.

Now I am not going to call into question the loyalties of the student body as a whole—we each make our own choices and decide what is important to us personally.  I suppose, given the lengths to which I have gone as a fan of the Big Orange (including running the Gate), I am one of those fans that you can count on to show up anytime the real Gate 21 (into Neyland Stadium) or the doors of the Tommy Bowl are open.  I suppose I am one of those nut-jobs who blindly supports the Vols regardless of the circumstances (this is not entirely true but, for the purposes of this article, it fits).  I guess that is why I always attended the games when I was a student.

Either way, only 312 students at the game is pretty slim pickings, and I am pretty sure — at a minimum — that out of the tens of thousands of students at UT, there are more than 312 students who, like me, are certifiable head-cases when it comes to supporting the Vols.

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From One of Their Own…

First off, let me say some stuff: I am currently a student at the University of Tennessee. This is my third football season here, and in the previous two years I’ve missed one home game (Kentucky 2006 because it was on Thanksgiving weekend) and been to five away games. I was in Athens in 2006. I witnessed the embarrassments at Florida and at Alabama last year. I saw the heartbreak of letting and SEC title slip away in ATL last December.

Proof I witnessed the beatdown in Gainesville last year (more on that trip Friday. I also saw the one in Tuscaloosa and the heartbreak in Atlanta...

So going back to last April, when The Daily Beacon broke the story (yes, it was their one occasion of actually printing new news) that students were going to have to begin to pay for football tickets, I hardly cared. I had spent probably close to over $300 on the three trips (hint: getting tickets from my dad and staying with people you know helps), what was $90 more?

The rest of my fellow students didn’t take the news so well. There was Facebook group that got up to 7,000 members in anger of what Mike Hamilton was doing. There were threats of boycotts of the UAB game, and a rally at the Orange & White Game, a rally that never occurred.

Personally, I got a kick out of watching everyone get so pissed off. I was actually happy in a way, because having to pay for tickets would get some of the people who don’t care enough anyways (dead weight, if you will) out of Neyland Stadium. It’s nowhere near impossible to save $90: like, say, spending less money on alcohol and the “going out” that I generally hardly ever take part in. Not only that, but I knew what getting tickets post-graduation was like, and we still have it pretty easy.

What does this have to do with anything? Well let me be blunt: on the whole, our students suck. Yes, I think we get pretty loud (the “F*** You Bama” chant in ‘06 was pretty good too) and I thoroughly enjoy sitting in the student section on Saturdays, have always enjoyed it, and will continue doing so. That’s about it.

It started with the whole unnecessary uproar over paying for tickets, the people who either show up late/leave at halftime, and the clingy couples who exhibit more PDA than interest in the actual game, and continued with this weekend’s nonsense. First, the booing – which unless my hearing is deteriorating (it’s not, that’s my sight) – began in the student section. After two incomplete passes and an interception.

I’m pretty adamant about this: NEVER BOO THE HOME TEAM. Not the players. The coaches I’ll give some leeway on, but never the players. Did Luke Stocker deserve to be booed after his drops? Probably. Does Jonathan Crompton’s play deserve the boos he got? Maybe. Still, there’s no reason for that – from the students, from anybody. I can’t count how many times Erik Ainge was cussed out last year around me – and we were undefeated at home!

Our moronic students need to be more aware that recruits on official visits come in and see that, and it’s duly-noted. Who wants to go where if they potentially screw up get booed? By their fellow students? Especially this week, when our recruit list is pretty phenomenal – not just limiting it to football recruits either. This is a big weekend for Bruce Pearl as well.

Then there’s the above picture, taken by my dad from his seats in XX3. Notice this is at the time the “T” is opening up. From D, I had no idea that was even there. It’s pathetic. Yes, it was UAB. Yes, it was a 12:30 game. Yes, it was on TV. Yes, it was really freaking hot. Yes, we lost to UCLA. Say what you want, give your excuses, whatever. That’s just awful and there’s no other way around it. I showed the picture to my friends later that night and they felt the same way.

I know attendance on the whole was pretty bad, but the last place I honestly would expect to see a decline in attendance would be the students. Out-of-towners, yes. Students, no. I know there are actually people here that came to UT and the whole football scene didn’t factor into their decision. Seriously, though, how hard is it?

You don’t have to live and die with every play. You don’t even have to know what the hell is going on. You don’t even have to know what a UAB is or name a Tennessee starter. Treat it like a social event for all I care (those types need to go in the upper deck, though). It’s not hard, and most of the time the games are pretty enjoyable – especially any win.

The main point of my post is this: from this point on, I won’t be defending the students when the awful attendance and not picking up 1,500 of the allotment or anything else gets criticized. I know it’s not everyone and there are plenty of true fans on this campus, but I’m done. And with all that done and said…

HERE’S TO THE STUDENTS AND ALL VOL FANS PULLING TOGETHER FOR SATURDAY – NEYLAND NEEDS TO BE ROCKING!!

Once again the sports world is abuzz about the start of spring training, and yet another Major League Baseball season. Baseball has a long list of issues on its plate as the season gets rolling along. All of the off-season chatter has centered on the problems arising from the Mitchell Report, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Bud Selig, Brian McNamee, Bob Uecker, Pedro Cerrano, Ebby “Nuke” LaLoosh, Rick Vaughn, and Crash Davis. Those last five names actually have nothing to do with the controversy swirling in baseball, but I threw them in just for the hell of it — after all, the more the merrier.

Anyway, I am sure that the powers that be in baseball simply cannot wait to get the 2008 season going so they can put all of this ugliness behind them — “move on” as it were. There are only 2 problems with this line of thinking:

1. The start of the 2008 season is not going to put the steroid issues that have been plastered all over the media for the last 6 months “behind” baseball, not even a little, and
2. Even if it did cause millions of otherwise reasonably informed Americans to suddenly forget about a story that has been covered with more nauseating detail and intensity than the war in Iraq, that forgetfulness would only be the result of the fact that increasingly fewer people in this country give two shits about Major League Baseball anymore anyway.

I think baseball has a very tough road ahead of it…

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