By Ciara Hooks
When you think about college one of the first things that come to mind is sports. The gymnasium filled with the players’ family and friends, the devoted student fans from each school, the marching band and school mascot running around the bleachers.
You can count on experiencing the roars of people cheering for the good, booing to the bad and dancing in their seats to the music played by the band. There might be a section of kids with school colors and player’s numbers painted on their faces. In the college atmosphere sports aren’t just games, they’re events, events that bring hundreds even thousands of people together.
School spirit is a huge part of the life of a college campus. It’s all about the students and their involvement and participation, because,“without the people the university is just walls,” said Steve Villanti, a former football coach at CCSU and now the Assistant Athletic Director.
However, school spirit is something that fluctuates from time to time on the CCSU campus. Sometimes students participate and show support and sometimes they don’t. When a sporting event is heavily populated with a crowd of students what could be the reason for it? Is it because that’s their favorite sport to watch, they have friends on the team, or is there an incentive? When a sporting event is lacking a crowd, why is that? Are the students, working, do they have class? Were they not notified about it, is the game off campus or maybe it’s not their favorite?
For the students at CCSU the big draw seems to come from Northeast Conference football and basketball.
“Basketball is an entertaining sport,” said Harold Blanchard a 22-year-old senior at CCSU and basketball lover. “It’s all about competition, at the end of the day you wouldn’t want to go see a ‘bad game’ you want to see a competitive intense game.”
Students flock in line with their blue chip cards to find a good seat for the games and when the Blue Devils are playing their rivals the gym and field are packed and full of anxiousness and tension.
According to Villanti the average amount of students that attended the football games is around 1,000, but can reach 1,300 during homecoming, while basketball usually draws in 750-1,200 depending on the games.
“Football has that student section in the endzone that’s pretty much full every game. Basketball has that section in the middle of the court that tends to fill up,” said Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director, Thomas Pincince.
Football season is heightened by homecoming. There’s pre-gaming, the half-time show, pre and post events and the Pep Rally, which are all good promoters and enticers for the games.
”I think [students] show the most support for football because it’s always on a Saturday and they have more time to go and also because the track record of the football team,” said Amanda Dilworth, graduate assistant and Event Staff supervisor.
Marketing and incentive is the athletic department’s way of getting students more involved and down to the games. The departments sends out dozens of emails to the students, puts up posters, do multiple promotions and giveaways contests and have a Facebook page.
The school will also provide a bus back and forth to the men’s soccer games at Willow Brook on October 28, starting at 2:30 p.m. The department has formed a good relationship with SGA and Sodexo, which has a huge hand in trying to get the students to the games as well.
“[SGA] has a marketing initiative this year called the ‘Cheermeister’ and they picked events here on campus, mostly athletic events, but some club events, where they’re keeping track of who attends the games and then they have a $1,000 giveaway for the person who ends up attending the most,” said Villanti.
CCSU has been trying to get to the students the first day they arrive on campus as freshman. To do so, freshman orientation the welcome is held in the football stadium. Paul Schlickmann, the athletic director, speaks to the incoming class about how important it is to build pride in the university and athletic program because essentially it’s their program. The band, cheerleaders and dance team perform as well.
It is all about creating an atmosphere that not only involves the student athletes and coaches, but also the students, alumni, faculty and staff.