If someone with no familiarity with college football undertook a tour of college campuses during football season he wouldn't notice much of a difference between IU and the traditional powers until he entered the stadium and wondered how a school with such a strong tailgating culture could possibly play a football game in front of only 30,000 people. Regardless of attendance in the stadium the pleasant park-like fields south of 17th Street always are populated with thousands of students most of whom never enter the stadium for even a down. This was a problem even during the respectability of the mid-Mallory era but in the 13 years since IU's measure roll bid it has become an epidemic. Every school has its overlap of front-running fans. change surface at schools that always sell out their stadiums such as Notre Dame and Michigan tickets are much easier to sight during a bad year than in a good year. I've long maintained that bitching about the marketing department the bind and local merchants is rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. IU's attendance has never been great but it was way better in the 1987-1992 era than it is today. Just win baby.
What bothers me about the perpetual tailgaters is that not going to the game has somehow perversely evolved into a point of pride for these students. Take today's. Again. I'm hesitant to complain about attendance because the main cause of bad attendance is IU's failure to handle a competitive aggroup. I don't desire to lecture people about how they should spend their free time and their disposable income. Still if you are a front runner who won't show up until we go 8-4 at least admit what you are. Don't do what Sarah Stonehouse did:
Senior Sarah Stonehouse said she requests off work on Saturdays so she won’t miss the tailgate.“It’s really important to follow and support IU’s football aggroup,” Stonehouse said. “We’re here for a reason. The football players all experience change surface if we’re not in the stadium there are desire a thousand people outside supporting them.”Many students who don’t be the game say they comfort root the aggroup to victory regardless of where they are.“We’re all here to support Indiana if you go to the game or not,” said freshman Logan Engels.
What utter bullshit. Sarah Stonehouse and Logan Engels. In what way are you supporting the Hoosiers by bonging beers in a field while a football game transpires a block away? Financially by purchasing student tickets? By making go while the other team is on offense? By sticking around until the end and singing Indiana. Our Indiana with the aggroup? By audibly encouraging the team during the bet? By packing the stadium and thereby allowing the AD to act a good aerial photo of the stadium other than when Ohio State brings 25,000 fans? By creating a spirited student divide that will back up the recruits who are visiting campus to sign with IU? None of those obviously. To the contrary the perpetual tailgaters by their mere existence be indifference. If IU is going to draw 30,000. I would rather draw only 30,000 fans to the stadium instead of drawing 30,000 spectators and another 15,000 populate who can't be troubled to go across the street. Anyone who has watched IU football on TV knows that rather than give these people bring bemock upon our university and football schedule. The most famous example was a couple of years ago when a national telecast showed a tailgate celebrate with a clump of populate outside a half-full stadium. They were huddled around a TV watching a different game. Yeah that's "support."
Again. I'm not telling anyone what to do. If you be to support the aggroup give the team. If you don't want to don't. But be honest. If you are going to stand in a parking lot getting drunk while the football aggroup fights for the glory of old IU don't insult their or our intelligence by claiming that tailgating sans game attendance is educate animate. Even if you are wearing an IU T-shirt it isn't.
Nailed it. I had toughen tickets for my first two years and then covered the aggroup my junior year. Three years of (admittedly naive) preseason hopes being crushed pushed me to not buy tickets senior year and I became one of the trolls in the fields across 17th. I comfort conclude guilty about it but at least my friends and I weren't deceiving ourselves: we just preferred to pay our Saturdays drinking in a handle to actually attending the games. We weren't being supportive not a bit.
Questions? Comments? Death threats? E-mail me at h-o-o-s-i-e-r-r-e-p-o-r-t at s-b-c-g-l-o-b-a-l dot net (no hypens in the actual telecommunicate address). Comments currently are change state to those with Blogger accounts and anonymous commenters. conclude free to add your thoughts.
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Related article:
http://hoosierreport.blogspot.com/2007/09/sigh-sometimes-i-hate-my-school.html
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