An anemic fan-base?
Did you know that the University of Indianapolis finished fifth in the Learfield Sports Director’s Cup standings for the 2008-2009 season? Did you know that out of over 250 Division II schools, UIndy outscored every single one athletically during last year’s spring season? According to our home game attendance, likely not.
UIndy has a history of extremely successful sports teams. In fact, just last year, we had 25 Greyhounds earn All-American honors. Currently, the women’s basketball team is ranked third nationally, the softball team fifth, women’s swimming and diving 11th, baseball 12th and men’s swimming and diving 16th. The volleyball team ended its season ranked sixth, while women’s golf is fifth and men’s golf is ninth. In addition, the women’s soccer team enjoyed national rankings as high as 10th throughout its season, as did the men’s and women’s indoor track teams. But where are the fans?
Despite the winning tradition of the Greyhound athletics, the majority of its teams rarely enjoy a large home crowd to cheer them on. In fact, most of the time the student body is completely unaware that it has such successful athletic teams playing on it’s own campus.
For example, the women’s basketball team held a Pink Zone game on Feb. 15. The team was ranked second in the nation at the time. It was their final home game before the conference tournament, and the theme was to wear pink and support breast cancer awareness. Yet, looking out at the stands, there were many rows of empty bleachers in Nicoson Hall. In addition, there was no admission fee for UIndy students, as it is for all UIndy home games.
Furthermore, this fall, the volleyball team’s successful regular season earned them the right to host the NCAA regional tournament. This time, the games were heavily promoted by the school to garner a large home crowd, and the student body answered; yet there was one problem: the entry tickets to the game had a picture of a football player with the caption “University of Indianapolis football vs. Kentucky Wesleyan” on it. Let me remind you this was a volleyball game.
It is frustrating that the football team, one of the school’s least successful programs, can fill well over half of Key Stadium, but a home soccer game and rarely has more fans there than the player’s parents.
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” junior soccer player Taryn Zimmerman said. “I’ve had classmates who didn’t even know the soccer teams played on campus.”
The baseball team echoes these thoughts.
“When we go play other schools, even those who aren’t as good as us, they almost always have a larger home crowd,” sophomore baseball player Scott Lawley said.
Part of this problem is due to the university’s half-hearted attempts at promoting home games. Unless students take the initiative to look up game times online, they are usually unaware when home games are, unless they are friends of athletes.
The only attempt I’ve seen to address this is when the school inconsistently puts a sign in Schwitzer Student Center with home game times, but it’s not even done for every home game and more than once the incorrect game time has been posted. Overall, it’s not very helpful.
The student body should be more proud of its successful athletic teams. All of UIndy’s student athletes work extremely hard and put in a lot of time and effort to be as good as they are. It would be rewarding if the student body recognized this and came to more home games, especially since there is no admission fee for UIndy students.
Perhaps more promotion is needed for game times, or maybe more events need to take place at home games to draw a larger crowd. Either way, something needs to be done to get more students at home games so athletes feel like they have a school that is proud to have them.
