With Homecoming and SG Spirit Week coming to an end, during which I’m attending multiple school spirit events, all I can say is that The University of Tampa really has little to no school spirit whatsoever. This isn’t a new issue, but due to the recent weeks, it is something that should be addressed.
Starting with casino night, it was a great event, but really had nothing to do with the school spirit or “Spartan pride” in any way. There was a great turnout, but why would “casino night” out of all things be the most popular event? Maybe because one out of five college students has a gambling problem (look it up) and there’s a chance for a personal gain by participating?
Yeah, casino night was a great time, but the same way it is with the real casino, you can either have a lot of fun or leave a loser, and, of course, everyone takes it as seriously as if they’re playing for real money. I’ve never heard the phrase “F*** this game!” used so many times at a college sponsored event.
And nobody can pretend that the chance to win a prize didn’t exponentially increase the amount of students who came. If your roommate told you about casino night I’m sure it went something like this:
“Hey, want to come out to casino night in Vaughn?”
“I think I’m just going to stay here. I have a few things to do, but thanks anyways.”
“You know there’s a chance to win stuff like a 32 inch TV and Rockband.”
“Why didn’t you say so! Let’s go celebrate Homecoming week!”
Moving on to Midnight Madness, I was really happy to see such a huge turnout of students and thought maybe kids actually did care about our teams this year, until I came to realize why so many students were there in the first place. Free stuff!
In fact, while waiting for the gym to open up all you could hear were students talking in the hallway about whether or not people would be throwing free things into the crowd, whether the comedian was going to be funny and how good the free food was. No mentions of UT basketball. Before the players even came out, at least a hundred kids left after the musical performance (yes, musical performance) and the comedian finished his set.
Why were so many random things included in Midnight Madness when the traditional way it should be run is to keep all the focus on the basketball team? It seems like our school feels the need to turn it into an entertainment driven social event. Sure, it’s an awesome perk when things are given out to draw a crowd, but that shouldn’t be the only reason people come out. The whole point of Midnight Madness is to show the players our support, and it’s sad when students think, “Sure the event is to support our basketball team, but will I have fun?”
Students should want to come out and support a team based on their school spirit and pride for their team regardless of what random activities are going on. Midnight Madness should not be the only time of the year where the gym is actually crowded.
So many students openly admit their lack of school spirit, too, and they all have the same reason. “It’s because we don’t have a football team.” It’s true a football team would probably promote a stronger sense of school spirit, but based on how much support we show our teams right now, nothing’s showed that we’re in need of a football team.
When there’s such low support for our current athletic programs now, there’s no guarantee it would change just because we have a football team. The same way parents don’t buy new toys for their kids when they don’t play with their old ones, if we don’t appreciate the toys we have right now, we’ll never get new ones! If there will ever be any chance of a football program being brought back to UT, there will have to be a huge change in the current support of our teams.
Even if you’re all about being social and drinking, you know you can still do that before going to a sporting event! Where do you think the term “pre-game” came from? People would drink, and then go to a game. Maybe just out of tradition, next time you decide to drink before going out and call it “pre-gaming” attend a sporting event just to see what it’s like (and USF’s games don’t count.)
There’s such a low sense of spirit here, people know so much more about insignificant things than about our athletic programs. I guarantee a majority of the school can name five clubs or bars in the Tampa area, but can’t name five players on any one sports team. Maybe instead of just assuming that really tall kid in the cafeteria is on the basketball team, you could go out to a game and see for yourself. Can you remember the last time you went to a school sporting event (if you ever did), and it was actually crowded?
I’m not assuming by writing this that I’ll be able to inspire everyone to change and have school spirit suddenly (how insane would that be though?), but I’m hoping after reading this everybody goes out to at least one game or event just to say you have.
Even if you don’t like it, you have a reason for your lack of spirit because you’ve actually been to a game. So many people have never been to a UT sporting event, and even if you don’t get anything from it, you can be with a group of friends there and it’ll be socially acceptable to be obnoxiously loud for that short period of time.
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@ut.edu.
i can play football if u guys wanna start a team
baby lyssa wants to come to ut so she can be a cheerleader
I’m tired of hearing how much we need a football team Do you all want tuition to go even higher? Because all a team would do is cost way too much money. It’s not economically logical to get a football team with so many big names surrounding us, so suck it up and go to another school if it bothers you so much.