Dear Student Section Leaders

[wauker]

I’m sending this message out to anyone who still cares to lead the student section, after last night I wonder how many of you are still out there. Cleveland State game was a prime example of why we need more organization within our student body. It’s pretty obvious at this point that the athletic department doesn’t have the time, nor the funds, nor the personal to do a adequate job of promoting and organizing Panther Pride. This should be more motivation of us as Panthers fans from the community and the university to step up and do the job the athletic department can’t afford.
I was pretty disappointed with the effect of some of the players on the court last night, but I was even more disappointed with the attitude from some of the so-called diehard fans. Sure, we are all mad about the game, but we can’t give up on our team in the first half. Just because we are losing doesn’t mean the fans should stop cheering, that’s when it most important. It’s especially important for the leaders of the section to LEAD cheers, because the casual fan doesn’t need help cheering for the panthers when they are winning, they need to know how to cheer for the panthers when they are down.
I’m very disappointed with those leaders who gave up on the panthers last night. The second half was rough, but it didn’t help that there was zero effort from the front row of the student section. A sad sight, watching those “diehard fans” sitting down pouting the whole second half, so it was left to the casual freshmen fans lead the “U-W-M” s. A worst sight is going to the amount of students who come to cheer at the next home game, because I think we lost at least half of those freshmen fans. We come to the games because we are told that they are fun, not because the Panthers are going to win. If we want to panthers to win every game then we should schedule a few more games against the school of engineering. We play quality opponents every week, so wins are out of the fans control. What we can control is our level of involvement and our level fun. One thing that should be constant at every game is that the student section should be a party; it should be the reason to party. “Win or loose, we still booze!” Ask those freshmen in the back of the student section if last night was fun, or ask them if they are coming to the next game. I feel sorry for those students who decide to come to their first game last night, because they lost their panther pride before they even had any. These are the students who are joining the ever-growing pool haters. We can’t let this happen
Don’t give up!!!!!!!!!!! The season is not over yet, and we are in a unique position in the schedule where we have a break from home games and time to build ourselves back up. Our next game is almost two weeks away; time for fans to forget about this lost and focus on our next home wins. The next home game is December 18th and I think the leaders of this student section have some preparation to do before then. People keep talking about how we need to build the student section, how we need more advertizing for the games. How about we stop talking about it and we start doing something. Getting more students to games is not rocket science, you just have to try. I live in Sandburg, and I printed out flyers and passed them out to my fellow dormmates, I brought 16 students to the game, all freshmen. We are 17 potential Diehard panther fans. We need to focus are student advertizing campaign towards the potential fans, and less on the long gone fans. This means a students section full of freshman and sophomores, this means we will have a full section for the next three seasons. This is how you build a fan base and a strong student section, but in order to do that the upperclassmen are going to have to “hold some hands” along the way. If the upperclassmen want to come to panther games as alumni and see a full student section in the stands for years to come, they need to take a few steps back and teach the rest of us how to cheer for the panthers. They need to be leaders.
What the student section needs in consistent leadership, which will result into tradition. Our upperclassmen have a great opportunity to be the creators of something great, a long tradition of panther pride. Everyone knows this school has great potential, but in order for the potential to live up to anything it’s going to take some effort from the Diehards.
If there are any Diehard panther fans out there, or if there is anyone who wants to be responsible for creating panther greatness, we need to start getting organized. I’m willing to put the work in; I hope there are others out there. I would be more than happy to meet up with everyone and get this program started.

Signed,

Sandburg Representative

[Deleted]

I don't disagree with the lack of enthusiasm shown last night in the section with the way things went. It would have been one thing if they showed any fight but that didn't happen. I know I wasn't happy with that display of basketball that was played and obviously others were not as well.

[Super King]

Die-hard fans aren't allowed to display frustration with their team?

Nonsense. Total abject absolute nonsense.

The entire front row, which you're deriding for lack of support or whatever it is you're actually accusing us of, stayed behind after the game to high-five the players and coaches. In a 23-point loss. Did you? Did the Freshmen?

[milwsport]

I thought the students were enthusiastic last night even when we were down by 20 they were still chanting. But when you get down by 30 it's hard to stay excited.

[JG Panthers]

Dec 5, 2010 20:02:47 GMT -6 Super King said:

Die-hard fans aren't allowed to display frustration with their team?

Nonsense. Total abject absolute nonsense.

The entire front row, which you're deriding for lack of support or whatever it is you're actually accusing us of, stayed behind after the game to high-five the players and coaches. In a 23-point loss. Did you? Did the Freshmen?

Don't get so defensive. Try to accept the students who want to help instead of making it into an exclusive club. What say you former student section leaders?

[Super King]

That letter read like it was written by someone who doesn't attend many games. The student section for the most part took the loss in good humor and stayed through the whole thing. So what if we weren't chanting -- which we were doing, by the way, and the front row can chant all it wants if the rest of the section won't join in -- down by 31 points? Does that mean we've "given up"? It means we're obviously going to lose a game and are having fun watching basketball. I take offense to someone questioning our loyalty from such a small sample size. The Marquette game featured the most spirited wall-to-wall chanting and cheering I've experienced as a student. Why not judge us on that game?

We still let the other team have it, we still laid into their bench (and got flipped off for it at the end, hilariously), and we still piled on jokes about Camczyk's hair. We cheered in earnest, especially for the third-stringers who were so impressive. And we didn't leave early or sit down in protest.

There's always a lull in chants in the second half, just like there's always a short energy outage from every fanbase at every collegiate event. It just so happened that we were losing by 30 points when it happened. It means nothing.

[JG Panthers]

Super King,

I'm not questioning your spirit; merely suggesting that you consider accepting students (especially freshmen) that have constructive criticism than alienate them...

[Super King]

I'm not trying to alienate anyone. If anything my suggestion is to come to as many games as possible so that he can get a better idea of who the student section is and how it operates. And remember, there's no rule that Freshmen can't jump down front and get involved in leading the section. And there's also no rule that leaders have to be down in front. The freshmen in back did a great job.

[JG Panthers]

Dec 5, 2010 21:12:25 GMT -6 Super King said:

I'm not trying to alienate anyone. If anything my suggestion is to come to as many games as possible so that he can get a better idea of who the student section is and how it operates.

Dec 5, 2010 21:12:25 GMT -6 Super King said:

The freshmen in back did a great job.

You didn't mention either of these things in your response. You told him what he said was "total abject absolute nonsense" (in case a simple nonsense wasn't enough) and then, in a condescending manner, basically dismissed everything he had to say. We can all be better...coaches, players, fans, administration included...

[wauker]

It's tough to say that the entire front row gave up last night, but I saw a serous lack of effort out of a large group of upperclassmen. I mean come on, they wouldn't even join in on any of the cheers that other individuals tried to get started, that was just sad. I really wish people would stop saying that this school has no pride, everyone wants the panthers to do well!!! Everyone wants to be apart of the great cheering section, but it feels so disconnected between the first three rows and everyone else.
No one tells us what to cheer, when to cheer, how to cheer. Honestly no one knows what hells going on during the school song, some student are standing, some are clapping, while the front row is throwing fist pumps. Seriously the upperclassman need to take a few steps back and do some teaching. If you have traditions than you need to show us. If you want everyone to give high fives to the team after the game, if thats going to be the tradition than start enforcing it. I expect more out of the upperclassmen, as you guys expect more out of the student section.
It's easy to sit back and complain about the lack of student support every game as numbers in the stands decease, but if you really want to build something here its time you upperclassman think about your first UWM game. Think about your freshman year, how excited you were to be apart something great. Think back, I bet you were awkward, and shy too. At what moment did you become a fan? There was probably some upperclassman there, probably from the sweet sixteen era, who taught you all the words to the school song. and if that not the kind of leaders you had, than thats the kind of leaders we need.

[Super King]

Every year we try to explain the ropes to new students, and every year they don't get involved right away. Trust me, Jimmy spends a lot of time yelling at kids to get involved. As time goes on, they get the picture, and the ones that stick around know it by heart by the end of the year. Again I say the sample size for your judgments here is woefully small.

Also nobody knows the words to the fight song because the fight song didn't have words when we went to the Sweet Sixteen.

[bball30]

Dec 5, 2010 22:00:44 GMT -6 Super King said:

Also nobody knows the words to the fight song because the fight song didn't have words when we went to the Sweet Sixteen.

That was mean of me, just get the facts man. The song's had lyrics for many many years...

[wauker]

SuperKing, you need to wise up. Yeah Jimmy is a great example of student leadership and probably one of the few students left at UWM who has tournament experience. Jimmy and the rest of you are not going to be students forever, but you can leave your mark on the student section and that will last forever, it's called tradition. If you teach this class of new panther fans your game day traditions, we too can adopt these traditions and pass them on when we become upperclassman, that's how you build a program.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2010 22:45:58 GMT -6 wauker said:

SuperKing, you need to wise up. Yeah Jimmy is a great example of student leadership and probably one of the few students left at UWM who has tournament experience. Jimmy and the rest of you are not going to be students forever, but you can leave your mark on the student section and that will last forever, it's called tradition. If you teach this class of new panther fans your game day traditions, we too can adopt these traditions and pass them on when we become upperclassman, that's how you build a program.

Games like last night though, do nothing to appeal to students that need a reason to come out to support the program or team. They have to work even harder now to convince people to come back out to games with their play on the court. You don't get too many chances to win people over, especially ones looking at the program with very critical eyes. I've been on both parts of these situations, as a die hard student who makes it to every game they can possibly get to and as a student who only went out of his way to get to games when it was convenient because of the play on the court and trust me, I like the die hard way a lot better.

Unfortunately though, there are a LOT of people on campus and in this area that are in the other position right now. That's why people such as myself and others were so upset last night because all the hard work done in getting the word out about the team and the program by die-hards such as Jimmy and others involved was seemingly crushed by one awful game. You can almost say things are pretty much back at square one because of it.

[Rawls]

When I was a freshmen, I didn't come expecting to be taught what to cheer or when to cheer it, but I remember specifically (as specifically as anything after 4½ years of.......college) being handed out a sheet with all the basic chants. Fight Song, Hey-You Suck, Great Taste-Less Filling, etc. It was greatly appreciated. There was something like this in the Panther Press (?) last year, my last in the student section. So there's an idea if it's not already in effect.

As far as getting more students to the games, it starts where you live. I'm sure the Krazies are appreciative of your efforts in Sandburg, wauker. I am as a season ticket-holding alum. For those off-campus, ask your flat mates, people on your floor, etc. An easy way for every one to help is friend Pounce on facebook. You'll get invited to every event. Then invite your friends from there.