Last
week, after a Texas victory over Oklahoma, Tom Penders complained about the lack of fan
support for his basketball team. In particular, Penders singled out
late-arriving, unenthusiastic fans, the lack of student support, and too many
empty seats. The Oklahoma game had an announced attendance of over 12,000. This
is quite misleading. UT, along with many teams both college and professional,
announce paid attendance. Paid attendance is a PR ploy. It means, if the ticket
was paid for — season tickets — you’re counted as there. In reality, the game
drew maybe 8,000 fans, many of whom do arrive late.
In bringing up this touchy subject, Penders evokes the proverbial turd in the
punchbowl. Everyone knows it’s there, but no one wants to talk about it. Here
are some of the common explanations… The Erwin Center: The size
(16,231) and the impersonal nature of the glob on Red River are often sited as
the reason why fans don’t fill each and every cushy seat. The Erwin Center — a
multi-purpose building able to handle an ice show, a circus, a Tom Petty
concert, an EST convention, registration day, and basketball — is, by
definition, not an intimate place. It serves all of these functions adequately
but there are better places to see the Ice Capades, Tom Petty, groove to the
ESTs, do your registering, and watch a basketball game. To be honest, I too
believed the huge Drum was the primary cause for crowd apathy. It’s too bad
facts get in the way of a good theory.
Duke, a basketball hotbed of wild fan and student support, does, in fact, play
in a relatively small gym. Cameron Stadium seats only 9,314. However, UNC’s
Dean Dome seats 21,000. KU’s Allen Field House seats about the same as the
Erwin Center. Indiana’s Assembly Hall holds 17,000 insane Hoosiers. Michigan’s
Crisler Arena seats 13,562. Arkansas’ new Bud Walton Arena, 19,000. Kentucky’s
Rupp Arena, the Taj Mahal of college basketball, seats 23,000. So much for the
too-big theory. People complain it’s too cavernous to make much noise, but this
is simply bullshit. I’ve been to girls’ games where there were 6,000 fans. The
noise could be deafening. Small bands of Aggies make way more noise than seems
proportionate to their numbers. When the fans get into a game, the Erwin Center
can and will quake. Sound doesn’t get lost. It just needs to be
made…
Texas fans are late and apathetic: I’ve been a season ticket holder for
20 years. Games have always started at 7:35pm. I’ve missed entire first halves
this season, because I keep forgetting the 7pm tip-offs. It’s a bad, unnatural
start-time, created to accommodate all-powerful television. Drive home from
work, pick up some laundry, pickup Billy at basketball practice, maybe scarf
down some dinner, and rush to the game for a 7pm tip. You try it.
Then there’s the Longhorn Foun-dation’s members, who slowly straggle into
their arena seats, downstairs in the Burnt Orange Room, chit-chatting and
drinking gin, also caught up in the rushed 7pm syndrome. On the other hand,
there are the 1pm Sunday tip-offs. Prominent talk show hosts seem to find this
“inconvenient.” When exactly, Jeff/Bill, is a convenient time? 2pm? Maybe 7pm?
Jesus, guys, games all over the nation start at 1pm on Sundays. You’re really
groping when you get this far down on the excuse barrel. The fans aren’t really
apathetic, just kinda old, lacking the old paint, the chest fervor of our
student days. Which leads nicely to…
Where are the students? Well, they’re at home or in their dorms
watching ER. And why is this? Because the poorly promoted seats
available to students, on the whole, suck. Many are located in the upper level
where a mountain goat might get vertigo. This, Tom, is very, very bad. It’s a
situation in which you should get more involved. Why doesn’t the athletic
department make damn certain the student basketball ticket package is
aggressively promoted everywhere on campus? Slick posters in every dorm and
frat lodge… flashy reminders in registration packets.
Why don’t students get blocks of prime seats? The an$wer is money. A personal
story: When I got my seats, back before there was a basketball program to speak
of, I was required to make a payment to the Longhorn Foundation to get
“priority seating.” I’m not sure what the Foundation does, but they do require
this tithe each year. Every year, during the Bad Bob Days, I penned long-winded
(and, I fancied, quite persuasive) letters to the ticket people requesting
better seats. It never happened, even though it was obvious many seats were
available. No explanations, same seats. Finally, I gave up. A few years ago, I
was told, off the record, what the deal was. Nothing would have made the ticket
folks happier than for me to follow through with my yearly threat to not renew
my tickets. I was told my seats would be worth many thousands of dollars more
(to the Longhorn Foundation) if they could sell them again. In other words,
those empty seats were not put in a hopper on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The seats were sold at a cost many times more than face value. This is nothing
more than institutionalized scalping to the Nth degree. Texas is not alone in
this policy but this rapacious practice is elitist and wrong. Virtually all of
the lower-level tickets are distributed in this manner. More tickets could be
made available to students as tickets holders choose not to renew but greed is
at work. Surely, Penders is aware of this and has some input.
Here’s my idea for a short-term fix. The University needs to create an easy,
convenient way for ticket holders like myself to turn in tickets they’re not
going to use. This should be in operation right up to tip-off. Students would
be given these tickets — no charge — first-come, first-served, at a
designated place and time, again, right up until game time. It’s not hard to
imagine long lines of students waiting for a good, free seat This gets on the
news. It feeds on itself. The wait becomes an event. Shazam — a
tradition is formed!
Austin is so much fun, every minute of every day, it’s difficult for
the busy, fun-loving citizens and students of the town to come to something so
mundane as a basketball game. This theory is so absurd, it makes me shudder,
but it’s widely propagated as a major factor in poor Austin attendance.
“Lawrence, Kansas,” someone snorts (or Knoxville or Ann Arbor or Tempe or
wherever). “What else do they have to do?” I’ve lived in Austin for 25
years. I’ve been to Lake Travis a handful of times. It’s been years since I’ve
been to Barton Springs. I mow the lawn, feed the dogs, work at a job, take out
the garbage, eat dinner, go to the movies, have a drink. Not much different
than a parallel fan in Tallahassee. Austin’s not heaven on earth. I don’t have
an eye-popping orgasm each time I venture outdoors, trying to decide which
wonderful thing I want to do today. In fact, from May until October, I try
never, ever to go outside at all. Then, from November to April, I cough and
sneeze. Wonderful Austin has nothing to do with poor attendance.
Penders is right, but it’s odd he picks now to mention it. It’s always been
this way. When Penders first arrived, trying to resuscitate a barely breathing
basketball corpse, he talked to every group and frat house who’d let him in the
door. He was willing to do anything to whip up some interest in his new
program. Does he still beat the bushes? UT’s a huge school. Students must
be the backbone of the maniacal enthusiasm he wants and the team deserves.
He, more than any other single person, could start to rectify this long, oozing
sore.
Write me: Coach36@aol.com
This article appears in January 31 • 1997 and January 31 • 1997 (Cover).