Letter to the Editor: How to get students to the Rock

Sept. 1, 2012. The scene was memorable and highly significant for a team trying to rebuild after a difficult campaign the year before.

The team, battered from a hard-fought game, gathered on its sideline to celebrate with its fans.

The team sang the fight song.

The crowd applauded in appreciation of the team’s effort.

The team felt their appreciation.

Too bad that team wasn’t the Indiana Hoosiers, who played at home and actually won the game.

The Hoosiers were across the field, having gone to the student section to sing the fight song and celebrate with their classmates.

Only nobody was there. OK, about 50 students were there.

September 15th, 2012: Memorial Stadium. After a solid first half but a lackluster third quarter, the home team looks within themselves and begins to mount a comeback.
They begin the comeback with a touchdown. Then, the defense rises to the occasion and gets a much needed stop.

The home team, emboldened, scores again to take the lead.

Now more than ever, they need their crowd to be loud and disrupt the opponents offense.

They look to their peers for help.

They turn to fire up their classmates.

All they see is the same 50 people who stuck with them the week before.

This makes it official. IU students are the worst football fans in the nation.

They don’t support their classmates. They show up in numbers to party on the lawns before the game but insult their classmates/student athletes by then going elsewhere.
 
They wear shirts that say, “Never Lost A Party” and feel like that is an accomplishment.

Guess what, guys? There’s no intercollegiate sport of “partying.”

The truth is it’s IU students, not the football team, that are the real laughing stock of the Big Ten.

The players are doing their part.

They attend classes, study tables, practices, team meetings and film sessions.
Essentially all of their time is taken for academic and athletic activities ­— unrelated to socializing.

Want improved recruiting? Want a better and more competitive team?

Hey, students — show up at the Rock.

No “five-star” recruit wants to celebrate with concrete and empty bleachers after the game.

So, here’s an open proposition to Fred Glass: Want to improve football attendance?
Institute the following program.

Student basketball tickets are allotted based on lifetime attendance to IU football games.

Tickets are scanned on the way in and on the way out, earning one point per quarter attended.

The seats behind the basket at Assembly Hall and in the front of the student section are given to students with the highest number of cumulative points for the whole season.

Don’t have points?

Enjoy the balcony.

Let the true IU fans get the spoils.

­— Will Mackey,
Bloomington, B.S., ‘96