It’s time we show up as a student body and support athletics as much as the school does. Our tuition money is already going towards them, so let’s make the most of the gameday experience.
Over the summer a YikYak post gained lots of attention, where anonymous sources complained and accused CCU of trying to become a Southeastern Conference school once football season starts. Their main problem was with girls who put lots of effort into their gameday outfits, and people who participate more in tailgating than actually watching the game.
To the people making these complaints I ask: what’s the problem with that?
College football is widely celebrated, especially in the South. As someone who grew up down here and has attended lots of football games across multiple conferences, I was super excited to finally go to college and experience gamedays at my own school.
However, after last season, I was left wanting more from our football traditions.
I noticed that overall, we lack spirit as a student body. We don’t even know our own fight song, you can’t get many people to stay past halftime and there’s barely support for anyone on the field including the band, cheerleaders or dance team.
Many probably think: well, it’s no fun to pull for a team that’s underperforming. Or maybe if we had a better team, you’d be a better fan.
But why wait? Why is our enthusiasm and experience fully reliant on the team’s success?
There are plenty of schools who have poor records or who have bad seasons, yet fans still show up and show out for their team. So why are we any different?
I’m not saying we all need to have as much enthusiasm as Grayson Bray did last year, or as much as our famous Banana Man has, but can we at least try?
These first two home games looked better, but I still feel like there’s room for us to improve gameday.
In the student section, you can barely hear the cheer team or band. Both of those are huge elements to supporting a fun and loud football environment, and I hope the school considers adding microphones for them in the future. If our fight song, music and chants were louder, I think it would create a more hyped-up student section.
As the number of students continues to grow, I hope we continue to sell out the student section and bring the most energy possible.
