This Must Stop
Today's post is about one of my biggest pet peeves, and why I think it is ridiculous. This is something that has grated my nerves ever since I arrived in Wilmington in the Fall of 2003. It is the lack of interest that is shown by this student body by anything worth noting. Now I'm not saying that this includes the student body as a whole. But it probably applies to about 80% of the students here, and that is probably an improvement since my Freshman year. The example I will use to epitomize this case study is basketball.
When I was accepted to UNCW during the winter of my senior year of high school in Oxford NC. I started reflecting on how my sports allegiances would change. I had grown up a Duke fan, this was aided by the fact that Oxford is a mere 30 minute drive from Cameron Indoor Stadium. I had also had the priveledge to go many Duke basketball and (cough) football games when I was young. I had also attended basketball camp at Duke one year and felt a certain kinship to Coach K and his players.
Being the huge sports fan that I am, particularly college sports, and the tops among these is basketball. This mainly stems from the appreciation I had for the atmosphere and beauty of the game from attending several at Duke. As well as going to a few games at Chapel Hill, and watching countless others on TV. And as every college basketball fan knows, the epitome of sports competition is the conference tournament's and the NCAA tournament that are held during March. Furthermore I know of no true hoops fan who doesn't find themselves cheering for the plucky underdog to pull off that big win over a "power (aka money) conference". Also every true hoops fan knows that this is the only time of year that you can find every truly good team in the country playing on TV. The tournament underdog has been the name of many teams that it is hard to imagine they could have ever truly been an underdog. Why even Duke was an underdog in the 80's and early 90's when they knocked off perennial powers such as UNLV, who would not be from a "power" conference today, and Kentucky. And most recently Gonzaga has built on tournament success, most notably a trip to the Elite 8, to build a nationally recognized program that has become a top 25 and NCAA tournament staple. Even though Gonzaga resides in a non-power conference. They are a member of the West
Coast Conference. The WCC is one of the top mid-major conferences in the country, and they have been even before Gonzaga received national noteriety.
The WCC is definitely a force to be reckoned with, just ask the Tarheels who lost to WCC member Santa Clara last year. I seem to remember that same Tarheel team going on to win the national title. And strangely enough they seemed to have lost very badly to a (gasp) non "power/BCS/money" conference team or even a ranked team that ESPN hadn't bothered to spend time on. There are countless other examples of this in recent years so I will not begin to bore you with details and research. However I will add that Michigan State, who most basketball analysts are picking to finish this year either in the Final Four or perhaps even as national champions have already caught their beatdown from mid-major team in the form of a 20 point loss to the Rainbow Warriors of the University of Hawaii.
The recent history of college basketball has brought to us many teams that have snuck under the radar of national exposure and yet still managed to do damage in the tournament. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, from the Horizon Conference, went to the Sweet 16 last year. Kent State, from the Mid-American Conference recently went to the Elite 8. Yet still many "big" hoops fans are willing to dismiss any team that isn't a household name as being inherently inferior to ones that are.
Here at UNCW we are in the spot light of ACC schools such as North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, and Wake Forest. And also to some extent in the spotlight of an Atlantic-10 team, Charlotte. UNC Charlotte recently escaped their curse of hyphenation by switching their schools official athletics name to Charlotte from UNC Charlotte. UNCW recently made some stride in that direction switching our name from University of North Carolina at Wilmington to University of North Carolina Wilmington. I say we should go all out and switch to Wilmington, as Charlotte did. This would help pull us out from under the shadow of Franklin Street and the rest of Chapel Hill. This is not to say we are not thankful for our academic relationship with the UNC system and it's 16 campuses, but as far as athletics go we no longer need to be under their shadow.
In recent years every college hoops analyst has talked about UNCW, particularly when all time great Brett Blizzard was crushing conference records here. Under his leadership we defeated USC in 2002 before going down in the final seconds to eventual national championship runnerup Indiana in the second round. The next year we completely out-played defending national champion Maryland when they hit a last second shot to knock us out of the tournament and end Brett Blizzard's college career. Maryland would go on to the Elite 8 that year. So logically UNCW could have done the same. Especially since we nearly defeated a team that did so and our best player was basically a non-factor.
So one could reasonably assume that the students that come to this institution have some sort of appreciation for this schools legacy. But sadly this is not the case. I receive no greater joy here than yelling and cheering on my Seahawks in the notorius student section at Trask Colisieum. And I receive no greater irritation than walking around campus and hearing students talking about the previous nights UNC or Duke victory. Or seeing said "students" walking around in college clothing of schools they decided not to go to, or they couldn't get in and either way they need to get that chip off their shoulders and stop adding to the inferiority complex that plagues this campus.
It seems like these students who claim to be big hoops fans would have some sort of appreciation of the great mid-major basketball that takes place on their campus. But this seems not to happen, they would rather watch UNC play on TV and vicariously sit in those student stands. Rather then go out and sit in the student stands, for free, and be up close and personal to some of the best basketball in the nation that takes place in the Colonial Athletic Association. And Trask is considered to be the toughest place to play in this conference by opposing coaches and players.
We play Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday with a 2:30 start. This is a great rivalry. The alltime series is tied at 14 all. UNCW has not lost to this team at Trask since 1996. The road team usually goes down in this series and lets get out there and make sure that happens this time.
And if you don't believe how good the CAA is just ask Dick Vitale.
Just ask our very own Coach Brownell.
"Question: Why is Trask such a difficult place to play?
Answer: I think over the years, any place that's had success and is difficult to play, the first factor is because you have good players. I think Trask also provides an intimate atmosphere where the fans are close to the court and the electricity on game night can often give our players an added boost of energy and enthusiasm, etc. "
"ESPN
Question: Is there any chance that we will ever get a game on ESPN from Trask? What has to happen for ESPN to come to Wilmington? I think VCU has had games on ESPN for the past few years and I also hear they are on again this year.
Answer: That is really out of our administration's hands and more of a CAA issue. Obviously, we'd love to have ESPN broadcast a game from Trask as I think it's one of the best college basketball environments in the country. But most of that is out of our hands and would have to be the result of the CAA office pushing for such a scenario. "
Or ask VCU coach Jeff Capel
"On playing in Trask Coliseum: “UNCW plays hard, they play tough and they are well coached. They have good players. That gets the crowd into it. The crowd wouldn’t be into the game if it was a bad program. The crowd has a passion for the program and the UNCW players give the crowd a reason to be into the games.”
I will never understand why students won't come out and support this program but then hypocritically want more programs to not support.
"Sigh..."
Go Seahawks.
See you at Trask
When I was accepted to UNCW during the winter of my senior year of high school in Oxford NC. I started reflecting on how my sports allegiances would change. I had grown up a Duke fan, this was aided by the fact that Oxford is a mere 30 minute drive from Cameron Indoor Stadium. I had also had the priveledge to go many Duke basketball and (cough) football games when I was young. I had also attended basketball camp at Duke one year and felt a certain kinship to Coach K and his players.
Being the huge sports fan that I am, particularly college sports, and the tops among these is basketball. This mainly stems from the appreciation I had for the atmosphere and beauty of the game from attending several at Duke. As well as going to a few games at Chapel Hill, and watching countless others on TV. And as every college basketball fan knows, the epitome of sports competition is the conference tournament's and the NCAA tournament that are held during March. Furthermore I know of no true hoops fan who doesn't find themselves cheering for the plucky underdog to pull off that big win over a "power (aka money) conference". Also every true hoops fan knows that this is the only time of year that you can find every truly good team in the country playing on TV. The tournament underdog has been the name of many teams that it is hard to imagine they could have ever truly been an underdog. Why even Duke was an underdog in the 80's and early 90's when they knocked off perennial powers such as UNLV, who would not be from a "power" conference today, and Kentucky. And most recently Gonzaga has built on tournament success, most notably a trip to the Elite 8, to build a nationally recognized program that has become a top 25 and NCAA tournament staple. Even though Gonzaga resides in a non-power conference. They are a member of the West
Coast Conference. The WCC is one of the top mid-major conferences in the country, and they have been even before Gonzaga received national noteriety.
The WCC is definitely a force to be reckoned with, just ask the Tarheels who lost to WCC member Santa Clara last year. I seem to remember that same Tarheel team going on to win the national title. And strangely enough they seemed to have lost very badly to a (gasp) non "power/BCS/money" conference team or even a ranked team that ESPN hadn't bothered to spend time on. There are countless other examples of this in recent years so I will not begin to bore you with details and research. However I will add that Michigan State, who most basketball analysts are picking to finish this year either in the Final Four or perhaps even as national champions have already caught their beatdown from mid-major team in the form of a 20 point loss to the Rainbow Warriors of the University of Hawaii.
The recent history of college basketball has brought to us many teams that have snuck under the radar of national exposure and yet still managed to do damage in the tournament. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, from the Horizon Conference, went to the Sweet 16 last year. Kent State, from the Mid-American Conference recently went to the Elite 8. Yet still many "big" hoops fans are willing to dismiss any team that isn't a household name as being inherently inferior to ones that are.
Here at UNCW we are in the spot light of ACC schools such as North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, and Wake Forest. And also to some extent in the spotlight of an Atlantic-10 team, Charlotte. UNC Charlotte recently escaped their curse of hyphenation by switching their schools official athletics name to Charlotte from UNC Charlotte. UNCW recently made some stride in that direction switching our name from University of North Carolina at Wilmington to University of North Carolina Wilmington. I say we should go all out and switch to Wilmington, as Charlotte did. This would help pull us out from under the shadow of Franklin Street and the rest of Chapel Hill. This is not to say we are not thankful for our academic relationship with the UNC system and it's 16 campuses, but as far as athletics go we no longer need to be under their shadow.
In recent years every college hoops analyst has talked about UNCW, particularly when all time great Brett Blizzard was crushing conference records here. Under his leadership we defeated USC in 2002 before going down in the final seconds to eventual national championship runnerup Indiana in the second round. The next year we completely out-played defending national champion Maryland when they hit a last second shot to knock us out of the tournament and end Brett Blizzard's college career. Maryland would go on to the Elite 8 that year. So logically UNCW could have done the same. Especially since we nearly defeated a team that did so and our best player was basically a non-factor.
So one could reasonably assume that the students that come to this institution have some sort of appreciation for this schools legacy. But sadly this is not the case. I receive no greater joy here than yelling and cheering on my Seahawks in the notorius student section at Trask Colisieum. And I receive no greater irritation than walking around campus and hearing students talking about the previous nights UNC or Duke victory. Or seeing said "students" walking around in college clothing of schools they decided not to go to, or they couldn't get in and either way they need to get that chip off their shoulders and stop adding to the inferiority complex that plagues this campus.
It seems like these students who claim to be big hoops fans would have some sort of appreciation of the great mid-major basketball that takes place on their campus. But this seems not to happen, they would rather watch UNC play on TV and vicariously sit in those student stands. Rather then go out and sit in the student stands, for free, and be up close and personal to some of the best basketball in the nation that takes place in the Colonial Athletic Association. And Trask is considered to be the toughest place to play in this conference by opposing coaches and players.
We play Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday with a 2:30 start. This is a great rivalry. The alltime series is tied at 14 all. UNCW has not lost to this team at Trask since 1996. The road team usually goes down in this series and lets get out there and make sure that happens this time.
And if you don't believe how good the CAA is just ask Dick Vitale.
Just ask our very own Coach Brownell.
"Question: Why is Trask such a difficult place to play?
Answer: I think over the years, any place that's had success and is difficult to play, the first factor is because you have good players. I think Trask also provides an intimate atmosphere where the fans are close to the court and the electricity on game night can often give our players an added boost of energy and enthusiasm, etc. "
"ESPN
Question: Is there any chance that we will ever get a game on ESPN from Trask? What has to happen for ESPN to come to Wilmington? I think VCU has had games on ESPN for the past few years and I also hear they are on again this year.
Answer: That is really out of our administration's hands and more of a CAA issue. Obviously, we'd love to have ESPN broadcast a game from Trask as I think it's one of the best college basketball environments in the country. But most of that is out of our hands and would have to be the result of the CAA office pushing for such a scenario. "
Or ask VCU coach Jeff Capel
"On playing in Trask Coliseum: “UNCW plays hard, they play tough and they are well coached. They have good players. That gets the crowd into it. The crowd wouldn’t be into the game if it was a bad program. The crowd has a passion for the program and the UNCW players give the crowd a reason to be into the games.”
I will never understand why students won't come out and support this program but then hypocritically want more programs to not support.
"Sigh..."
Go Seahawks.
See you at Trask
posted by TAH at 3:55 PM
1 Comments:
I think your feelings are shared by more students than you think. The only thing that can cure it is winning. I'll support the hawks no matter what though.
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