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Post by tuckfinn42 on Feb 1, 2004 16:14:42 GMT -6
The fact that we're a commuter school should have no bearing on whether we get 2000 student to a game or not. If 10,000 students are living around here there's no reason at least 25% of them can't come to the games to support the school. There's plenty of other schools, private schools mostly, that only have 10-12,000 people and they still get 4000 students at their game. I agree with the email idea. If we could somehow send mass emails to all who attend, that would at least get the idea of going into students' heads. You can't force people to like sports and to want to go to our games though, unfortunately. All we can do is try to get more interest from students and as programs' success continues, so does attendance. Especially for a mid-major school. That being said, I was very pleased to see a lot of the students there last night.
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Post by nohopspanther on Feb 1, 2004 16:39:47 GMT -6
Being a commuter school has everything to do with fan support because people don't indentify nearly as strongly with a university they don't feel a part of. This leads directly to a lack of support for sports programs. Those small private schools you bring up have very strong feelings of association with their students and alumni, that doesn't exist at commuter schools at all. It is being fostered in the smaller section of this university which lives here and will want to indentify with the basketball teams more and more as the winning continues. It takes time. When I was in high school I used to go to MU games with my friends and the student section was complete crap, 100-200 at most and they made no difference. MU is now drawing the casual milwaukee basketball fan and that's why they fill the BC. As soon as UWM draws the interest and support of the casual Milwaukee fan we will fill the Arena regularly.
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Post by tuckfinn42 on Feb 1, 2004 22:36:43 GMT -6
OK, so I do agree it has some bearing for the commuters but for the students that are here, whether it be 6000 or 10000, whatever it is, those students are able to experience campus activities whether it be just goin to the games or goin to pre and post game activities. If people come to a couple of these games, see how much fun it can be if you participate, then there's no reason 1/4 of the students living here on campus shouldn't come to the games. I wanna know why all the alumni that live in the area, and it is a lot, don't show support other then when we're 10-0 in conference or playing for a conference title.
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Post by tuckfinn42 on Feb 1, 2004 22:39:05 GMT -6
...And yes, it is true that as we keep winning more and more people will come out to see us like you said, such as the casual fan or the bandwagon fans.
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Post by PantherEuph on Feb 2, 2004 1:03:42 GMT -6
I have to agree with Mr. NoHops. I brought a friend along (a UWM Alum of 2 yrs) to the GB game - which he didn't know about until I told him that morning - and I asked him if he still carried his ID so he could get in free, and he said "I never bothered to get one." Now that's a true commuter student for you. They really could give a rats patoot about school pride, spirit, or awareness. Although, on the bright side, after watching the game he said he would be back next Saturday... looks like we all have the idea pretty much... Let's not forget about the crowd we had Saurday either - we shouldn't be talking about how much more support we NEED to get, because we just blew the door off regular season conference game attendence at just about any school in the HL and just about any time. Problem?? What problem?
Go Panthers! Go Band!
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Post by tuckfinn42 on Feb 2, 2004 1:21:10 GMT -6
Totally agree. It was a pretty awesome atmosphere last night and as far as fans coming to the games now that we're 10-0 in conference, it won't be very difficult to fill it up the rest of the year.
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Post by nohopspanther on Feb 2, 2004 1:47:38 GMT -6
I actually loaned out my ID so a guy i didn't know would come to the game because he it meant 3 others would show up if he did as a package deal kinda. One ID loaned out 4 more voices in the stands.
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