Entry 6: Research

It is Big Ten Season. Penn State is playing an average squad from Chicago, Northwestern University. NU is not that great of a team, but they are good enough to keep the game close and make it exciting. Penn State is a good team this year, closing in on their first NCAA tournament appearance in 10 years. So, the crowd was filling the stands in support of their finally good basketball team. Well, not really. I walk in 20 minutes before tip, and I can pick practically any seat I want. The older season ticket holders have found their seats, but there isn't much more than that. The Bryce Jordan Center feels cold and empty. A sea of blue can be seen, but not from fans shirts, but from the color of the fan-less seats. A black curtain is covering half of the upper deck, as those tickets will not be sold due to no interest. Closer to the game, the walk up ticket buyers start to fill in the stands and it starts to look a little but better. But, the student section is the main concern. The student section is split into two sections. One section that is parallel to the teams benches, and it goes back about 15 rows with standing room in the front as well. The other section is behind the hoop, and it covers all rows in that section except for the upper deck. This section never fills, and on this day it is filled about five rows out of 40 or 50. The other section has the standing room filled and then some students in the seats. A poor showing again. But why is this? Penn State has a huge student body, yet basketball games can barely attract any. Why?

The first quote I got is from someone like me who went to every game last year and is a Freshman at Penn State this year. "It gets frustrating to go to every game and to keep seeing this empty student section. When you look at other schools, some get huge student crowds, and the atmosphere in those arenas is so good. I just wish we could have that, instead of only filling up for 1 or 2 games a year when people decide to jump on the bandwagon, then PSU loses and they never come back. It sucks"

The next quote is from a member of the student section, Ben. He is part of their committee that makes decisions. " We keep trying to spread out interest to others in different ways. Free food and shirts and videos but it still hasn't really caught on. (New head coach) Pat Chambers has done a great job thus far in spreading the news and getting kids interested so we are optimistic that things are getting better."

The last quote is from someone that hasn't been to a game and is a Freshman at PSU. "I haven't heard great things about the team but I know they did pretty good last year so I will probably go to a few games to see what's up. I just don't see myself going to a lot of games because they are during the week and I have lots of things to do on weeknights."

I have do dig up some of the facts as one of the main ones i wanted to use looks to have been taken down from th epenn state website. It said that this year a record number of student tickets have been sold to freshman. So the incoming freshman are excited about the team. It also said that they had sold them with football tickets for the first time, so maybe that is why the sales increased. So those two facts need to be dug up.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/23576/some-things-never-change-at-penn-state

This article on ESPN about Penn State talks about the university and how they treat the team poorly. So if they are treated poorly by the higher ups, why should students care.

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/040209aaa.html

THis article talks about the year the team won the NIT tournament. 36! buses full of students traveled to new york city to support the team. SO the support is there, maybe success is all the students want?