A
couple of weeks
ago, I wrote a column commenting on some issues raised by Texas basketball
coach Tom Penders. Penders complained, at a post-game press conference and
later in the week on his radio show, about the tepid response his team receives
in the too empty, too quiet, Frank Erwin Center. This turned out to be a more
sensitive subject than I imagined, garnering more mail and on-the-street
comments than anything I’ve written here. Among the mail were two responses
from people high up within the UT Athletic Department. Though I fear setting a
disturbing precedent, replacing ignorant, albeit heartfelt, conjecture with
fact, here are the answers to those disturbing questions, keeping us all from a
good nights sleep.
Penders noted, with annoyance, late arriving fans. I suggested that the new
7pm start was confusing and inconvenient to those of us used to 25 years of
7:35 SWC starts. These comments were greeted with no small sarcasm by my
friends in the AD. In summary, they said, “Hey Bucko, we play in a new
conference where people actually watch our games on TV. Who gave a shit —
aside from the odd sod buster in Amarillo — what time a SWC game began?”
Every game is televised now, many back to the Eastern Time Zone, where
all the poll voters are. Not to mention, when a game ends at 10:30 EST, great
Reggie dunks don’t make it on Sportscenter or CNN news. This is bad.
We’re in the big time now. Get to the game on time!
Okay, but at least I have an excuse for being late (lame though it may be).
But where, Tom asked, are the students who live only a few blocks away?
Generally they’re not only late, but don’t come at all. I suggested students
surely would come in salivating droves if good tickets were made available and
the basketball program were more aggressively promoted. More than 21,000
Longhorn All-Sports packages, I was told, are sold to students each fall. In
effect, this gives each a ticket to every football and basketball game. This
package is aggressively promoted, fall and spring, with dorm posters, on dorm
TV, and in all the mass media. So, where are they?
Who knows, except not in the 4,000 seats set aside for students each
game. Unhappily, it’s rare if even 10% show up for anything other than a high
profile opponent. The games are heavily marketed in the Daily Texan.
Kids can even draw seats (don’t want ’em to wait in line) on the wonderful Web.
At one time, an entire arena level section was reserved for students. Finally,
the AD decided it was better to have a paid-for season ticket than an
unpaid-for empty student seat. As a friend questioned, “What’s a mother to
do??”
An interesting and exotic theory is that, of the 6,800 beds on campus, 30% are
slept in by foreign students, who may or may not have much interest in booing
Eddie Sutton. That doesn’t leave much of a campus to draw from. So, 41,000
students are in the same boat with the rest of us commuters, except that many
of the kids rely on the bus for transportation. There is much concern with UT
losing, completely, its campus feel. There are proposals afloat to double the
current dorm space to address this problem.
I’d concocted an elaborate and muddled scheme whereby a prime section of
student seating could be liberated by not reselling season seats left unrenewed
at the end of the season. In five years, there’d be enough empty seats to move
everyone around, thus forming a powerful and telegenic mass of bare-chested,
painted students. And a swell plan it was, said my new friends, except for the
inconvenient fact that season tickets are virtually never turned back.
Of course, these are reasons, no real answers. Much to the chagrin of
impatient, simple-minded folk like me, there’s no single solution. It remains
my opinion that any solution to Texas basketball apathy must target, mainly,
the massive student body. A pervasive and constant — year in, year out —
marketing and advertising campaign must be brought to bear on the students.
Forget old grievances about what they didn’t do five years ago. It’s a new,
exciting world in the Big 12. Let’s start anew.
I further suggested Penders himself get more personally involved in this
marketing effort. His considerable public relations skills would be helpful in
bringing the students back. There’s no point, Tom, in scorching the choir, who
support the program, because they’re a little sedate. Look behind you, you’ll
see gray-haired sports fans, many not in the best of physical condition. Why,
if they hollered for 40 minutes, the games would be disrupted more often than
an old SWC tiff, what with paramedics running up and down aisles and constant
calls over the PA asking if there’s a doctor in the house. Can’t have
over-zealous, corpulent, middle-aged Exes dropping like flies (on national TV).
It just isn’t UT.
I make this compelling — if I don’t say so myself — final argument: If a
total moron like Dennis Rodman can self-promote himself into a world-wide media
star, surely the University of Texas can, with all the magnificent resources at
her disposal, successfully motivate 10% of its student body to fill up — nay,
fight over — 4,000 seats.
This article appears in February 14 • 1997 and February 14 • 1997 (Cover).