Loyalty. Tireless attendance, head-to-toe body paint, impromptu renditions of “Rock and Roll, Part II.” However it manifests itself, loyalty here matters when our reputation, for better or for worse, is tied so closely to the performance of our athletics teams.
Our basketball players attest to the crowd’s ability to energize the team to wins against long odds over top-ranked and bitter rivals North Carolina and Duke over the years. Most recently, poor fan attendance has contributed to muted crowds during what should have been easy games against American University and Ohio. Both ended in losses.
For the last few seasons, while the team has been mired in the doldrums, unable to attain its past prominence on the national sporting stage, spirit at home games has taken on unprecedented importance because winning them is critical for a trip to the NCAA tournament.
And yet the stands have been empty. When we played Hampton earlier this season, the wall was half-full. We barely won.
Maybe we’re getting soft. Few current undegraduates can recall braving long lines in the bitter cold for a chance to get tickets to games against our biggest rivals.
Instead of an endurance contest for tickets, we now have an odd ritual where “loyalty” can be earned by scanning tickets at Comcast and leaving without actually supporting the team. Testudo’s troops have suffered countless casualties through this recipe for self-destruction.
The Athletics Department hopes to remedy the problem by advertising the tickets available at will call for students left out of the lottery, but they’re missing the point: when games are sold out, students who scan and leave take the seats of die-hard fans who stick with the team through devastating losses and meaningless blowouts.
What a bankrupt definition of loyalty.
The scan and leave loophole has existed for six years and yet nothing substantial has been done to fix it.
PR campaigns have not been working.
Shame has not been working.
This is a systemic problem and it must be addressed as one.
We have used this space twice already – once four years ago and again two years ago – suggesting ways to fix the system. The possible solutions are numerous and simple: put boxes near the exits for students to drop their tickets into when leaving to get credit for sticking through the game; store ticket information on ID cards and have students swipe on their way out. Students and administrators could easily meet to select and implement the best solution.
The time for action is now. Members of the SGA can and should work with administrators to tackle this contentious issue and implement a solution just in time to list it on their accomplishments before elections roll around.
Rare are the opportunities where small solutions can have such a large impact on the university.
