I know there is a lot going on today, and I have much more to comment on - but that's for later perhaps. (If you remember my post-season drivel from several years back, you'll recall I can be long-winded). Here's part one.
A Mind Dump on Student Attendance and Fan Interaction
In August of 2003, a college freshman from a mid-sized Wisconsin city (and a tiny, private high school) arrived on the campus of Valparaiso University. That fall, the football team would go 8-4 and win the PFL, its best season this century. The volleyball team – under second-year head coach Carin Avery – would post a 27-8 record, win the Mid-Continent Conference and make an NCAA Tournament Appearance.
Winter sports would find a way to improve on these results as both the men's and women's basketball teams found their way into the NCAA Tournament, with the women's team giving #2 seed Kansas State a battle before ultimately falling by single digits.
That college freshman took notice at how successful the teams at his University seemed to be, and how many students came to games. Over the next four years, that student became more and more involved in the student section, trying to get more and more students to games, trying to get the rest of the crowd to be engaged and hopefully enhancing the environment at sporting events at Valpo.
While that effort led to a generally neutral effect on sports that were not men's basketball, student attendance and engagement for men's basketball increased and the ARC became a place that was consistently loud – and it became a place that opponents simply did not win many games.
Fast forward to the fall of 2007, when that student – together with a small group of others – decided to take their efforts a step beyond what they had done in the past, creating what they called "The Sixth Man Rewards Program". These students went out and raised a significant amount of capital – both in cash and in goods – that was given away to the students throughout the year, based on how many games they attended.
That student was me.
The program we started also tracked student attendance. Numbers were up. There were 500 or more students at almost every men's basketball game. Though not all of these students sat in the student section, many did. The section was full game after game. Full and loud.
Then came February 5. The Butler game. ESPN. 1600 students. One Thousand and Six Hundred. Even the chairbacks stood and cheered. A lot.
It was special. But given how the season had gone and how students had been coming to games, it was not entirely unexpected. Maybe not to that extent, but we knew the place would be packed.
Fast forward only a decade and the expectations have, unfortunately, shifted to the opposite extreme. Fans who can't make it to the games turn to ESPN3 and see half-full student sections (at best), a chairback section who looks like they've been told that they will be flogged should they so much as make a peep and (the appearance of?) a general malaise inside the arena that is disappointing – even disheartening.
Things have changed significantly in only ten years.
It has been discussed many times that the Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana community will never fully be supportive of Valpo basketball to fill the arena on a consistent basis. While there is some truth to this, it is not fully accurate. Past games against Marquette, Butler and Purdue have seen a packed house. The recent NIT games against Florida State and St. Mary's were full to the rafters. Horizon League Championship games were played in front of a full house as well. Heck, in 2010, there were close to 2000 people in the ARC for a women's game against Notre Dame. The support does exist, it is simply (or not so simply) a matter of getting those butts in the seats.
There are myriad reasons why fans do or do not show up to games, and they are different for every group. Students want certain things. Young alumni may want different things. Families, older alumni, community members, etc. Everyone wants something different from the game day experience.
For now, I'm choosing to focus on one: student attendance and involvement. If this is improved, it has a cascade effect on all of the others. What can be done to put butts in the student section?
Going back to 2007, there are many similarities to what we saw that year and what we see now. Student attendance had hit a bit of a lull, the team was playing in a new conference that didn't have a lot of "rivalry" feeling to it (albeit that there were a couple of schools that we saw that way).
It takes a significant commitment from a fairly large circle of people to make it happen. There have to be students who are willing to commit their time for little return. There has to be commitment from the athletic department. There has to be commitment from the teams and coaches. There has to be commitment from the community. All of those, however, circle back to the first.
Who is in charge of the student section?
From the time I started in school until I graduated, there was a clear hierarchy of students who were the leaders of the student section. Frankly, I'm not sure who is in charge now or if there is even an organized model for running the section. We took the student section to the Student Senate and became a recognized organization on campus. We had a budget from Student Senate that we were able to use to fund prize programs, theme nights, bus trips and whatever else we needed to do over the course of the season. This was a huge step for us. The student section now needs to have dedicated leadership, with a vision for the future, who will not only run the section, but will prepare the next generation of leaders. It needs campus affiliation. Perhaps through athletics. Perhaps through student government. Perhaps both.
In addition to not knowing who the leaders are, not once in the last ten years has anyone been in touch with the students who had built the student section to where it was. We had developed new "traditions", ideas, thoughts and procedures. Things ran smoothly. Most importantly, STUDENTS SHOWED UP AND STOOD IN THE STUDENT SECTION. Our student section lost its voice, lost connections with sponsors, lost leadership. It is a shell of itself.
What can be done?
Again, everything starts with leadership. Nothing else can happen until that is set. Then, you have to figure out how to get students to games. Usually, it takes things. Stuff. Giveaways. We had a $5 membership fee. It essentially paid for the t-shirt, but it created a little bit of buy-in (no pun intended) from a student. We set up at FOCUS days, had highlights playing on laptops, had players there to meet the incoming freshmen.
We gave out the shirts. Sandwiches from Jimmy John's (our sponsor) from time to time. A rewards program for showing up to games that included Qdoba, Inman's, Strongbow's and many other local businesses. We gave away tickets to a Colts game. Basically, you just had to show up to games and scan your ID card to get points. Enough points and you got a reward at the next game you showed up to. It took some time, but not nearly as much as some may thing. It can be done.
It is hard to compete against the hundreds of other activities on a college campus. This is reality, whether people want to admit it or not. When I was in school, I hung out with men's and women's basketball players. I hung out with volleyball and football players. Athletes were around. The students in the dorm room next to me did not know that Valpo even had a basketball team until late in the season. I wish I was kidding when I say that. Not everyone cares, and that's OK.
There is a snowball effect. Get kids to come to a game. ONE SINGLE GAME. Give them a good experience. Help them make new friends. They'll come back and bring someone else along. It simply doesn't happen overnight.
We advertised everywhere we could. We taped flyers on dorm room doors. We put table toppers in the union and the other dining halls. We set up tables in busy areas every chance we had. It was all worth it. I look back through videos of old games today and I'm still proud of those wild, crazy, loud, obnoxious and (most of all) packed student sections.
It also takes success on the court. Fans – especially students – don't support losing teams. The last few years have not been to the level that we, as Valpo fans, have come to expect. If that improves, it makes it a lot easier for all of the other things to happen.
So, to the leaders of the student section: Be leaders. Go above and beyond. Work with athletics. Work with the teams. Get to know the players (trust me, they're people, too...and they're probably not bad people to know on campus). Use every available resource – and DON'T RELY SOLELY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Get in touch with those before you.
We created something great. It has fallen down, but we can lift it up again. And, I truly mean WE!
A Mind Dump on Student Attendance and Fan Interaction
In August of 2003, a college freshman from a mid-sized Wisconsin city (and a tiny, private high school) arrived on the campus of Valparaiso University. That fall, the football team would go 8-4 and win the PFL, its best season this century. The volleyball team – under second-year head coach Carin Avery – would post a 27-8 record, win the Mid-Continent Conference and make an NCAA Tournament Appearance.
Winter sports would find a way to improve on these results as both the men's and women's basketball teams found their way into the NCAA Tournament, with the women's team giving #2 seed Kansas State a battle before ultimately falling by single digits.
That college freshman took notice at how successful the teams at his University seemed to be, and how many students came to games. Over the next four years, that student became more and more involved in the student section, trying to get more and more students to games, trying to get the rest of the crowd to be engaged and hopefully enhancing the environment at sporting events at Valpo.
While that effort led to a generally neutral effect on sports that were not men's basketball, student attendance and engagement for men's basketball increased and the ARC became a place that was consistently loud – and it became a place that opponents simply did not win many games.
Fast forward to the fall of 2007, when that student – together with a small group of others – decided to take their efforts a step beyond what they had done in the past, creating what they called "The Sixth Man Rewards Program". These students went out and raised a significant amount of capital – both in cash and in goods – that was given away to the students throughout the year, based on how many games they attended.
That student was me.
The program we started also tracked student attendance. Numbers were up. There were 500 or more students at almost every men's basketball game. Though not all of these students sat in the student section, many did. The section was full game after game. Full and loud.
Then came February 5. The Butler game. ESPN. 1600 students. One Thousand and Six Hundred. Even the chairbacks stood and cheered. A lot.
It was special. But given how the season had gone and how students had been coming to games, it was not entirely unexpected. Maybe not to that extent, but we knew the place would be packed.
Fast forward only a decade and the expectations have, unfortunately, shifted to the opposite extreme. Fans who can't make it to the games turn to ESPN3 and see half-full student sections (at best), a chairback section who looks like they've been told that they will be flogged should they so much as make a peep and (the appearance of?) a general malaise inside the arena that is disappointing – even disheartening.
Things have changed significantly in only ten years.
It has been discussed many times that the Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana community will never fully be supportive of Valpo basketball to fill the arena on a consistent basis. While there is some truth to this, it is not fully accurate. Past games against Marquette, Butler and Purdue have seen a packed house. The recent NIT games against Florida State and St. Mary's were full to the rafters. Horizon League Championship games were played in front of a full house as well. Heck, in 2010, there were close to 2000 people in the ARC for a women's game against Notre Dame. The support does exist, it is simply (or not so simply) a matter of getting those butts in the seats.
There are myriad reasons why fans do or do not show up to games, and they are different for every group. Students want certain things. Young alumni may want different things. Families, older alumni, community members, etc. Everyone wants something different from the game day experience.
For now, I'm choosing to focus on one: student attendance and involvement. If this is improved, it has a cascade effect on all of the others. What can be done to put butts in the student section?
Going back to 2007, there are many similarities to what we saw that year and what we see now. Student attendance had hit a bit of a lull, the team was playing in a new conference that didn't have a lot of "rivalry" feeling to it (albeit that there were a couple of schools that we saw that way).
It takes a significant commitment from a fairly large circle of people to make it happen. There have to be students who are willing to commit their time for little return. There has to be commitment from the athletic department. There has to be commitment from the teams and coaches. There has to be commitment from the community. All of those, however, circle back to the first.
Who is in charge of the student section?
From the time I started in school until I graduated, there was a clear hierarchy of students who were the leaders of the student section. Frankly, I'm not sure who is in charge now or if there is even an organized model for running the section. We took the student section to the Student Senate and became a recognized organization on campus. We had a budget from Student Senate that we were able to use to fund prize programs, theme nights, bus trips and whatever else we needed to do over the course of the season. This was a huge step for us. The student section now needs to have dedicated leadership, with a vision for the future, who will not only run the section, but will prepare the next generation of leaders. It needs campus affiliation. Perhaps through athletics. Perhaps through student government. Perhaps both.
In addition to not knowing who the leaders are, not once in the last ten years has anyone been in touch with the students who had built the student section to where it was. We had developed new "traditions", ideas, thoughts and procedures. Things ran smoothly. Most importantly, STUDENTS SHOWED UP AND STOOD IN THE STUDENT SECTION. Our student section lost its voice, lost connections with sponsors, lost leadership. It is a shell of itself.
What can be done?
Again, everything starts with leadership. Nothing else can happen until that is set. Then, you have to figure out how to get students to games. Usually, it takes things. Stuff. Giveaways. We had a $5 membership fee. It essentially paid for the t-shirt, but it created a little bit of buy-in (no pun intended) from a student. We set up at FOCUS days, had highlights playing on laptops, had players there to meet the incoming freshmen.
We gave out the shirts. Sandwiches from Jimmy John's (our sponsor) from time to time. A rewards program for showing up to games that included Qdoba, Inman's, Strongbow's and many other local businesses. We gave away tickets to a Colts game. Basically, you just had to show up to games and scan your ID card to get points. Enough points and you got a reward at the next game you showed up to. It took some time, but not nearly as much as some may thing. It can be done.
It is hard to compete against the hundreds of other activities on a college campus. This is reality, whether people want to admit it or not. When I was in school, I hung out with men's and women's basketball players. I hung out with volleyball and football players. Athletes were around. The students in the dorm room next to me did not know that Valpo even had a basketball team until late in the season. I wish I was kidding when I say that. Not everyone cares, and that's OK.
There is a snowball effect. Get kids to come to a game. ONE SINGLE GAME. Give them a good experience. Help them make new friends. They'll come back and bring someone else along. It simply doesn't happen overnight.
We advertised everywhere we could. We taped flyers on dorm room doors. We put table toppers in the union and the other dining halls. We set up tables in busy areas every chance we had. It was all worth it. I look back through videos of old games today and I'm still proud of those wild, crazy, loud, obnoxious and (most of all) packed student sections.
It also takes success on the court. Fans – especially students – don't support losing teams. The last few years have not been to the level that we, as Valpo fans, have come to expect. If that improves, it makes it a lot easier for all of the other things to happen.
So, to the leaders of the student section: Be leaders. Go above and beyond. Work with athletics. Work with the teams. Get to know the players (trust me, they're people, too...and they're probably not bad people to know on campus). Use every available resource – and DON'T RELY SOLELY ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Get in touch with those before you.
We created something great. It has fallen down, but we can lift it up again. And, I truly mean WE!
