This has been a roller coaster season for the Athletics Program at Fox. We has a stellar soccer season. Volleyball went through ups and downs, and the basketball season has been less than acceptable in many respects. In fact, our women’s basketball team folded in mid year.
Clearly UW Fox is a campus where academics are far more important than athletics. But athletics can build a spirit of togetherness. Some students complain that this is not a “real college campus.” Support for athletics can make it a more typical college campus. And students who would not be able to play at places like Madison, Milwaukee or Marquette can enjoy competition. In fact, last week our men’s basketball team was jeered by the crowd at UW-Manitowoc because they have apparently picked up that this campus and community does not support the team.
Athletics can even serve as a recruiting tool for the campus. I am sure that there are many students who would like to participate in athletics to add to their academic experience. Statistics suggest that students who participate in activities outside the classroom enjoy college more than those who just go to class.
I’ve heard that other UW Colleges teams enjoy more support than Fox does. More students, faculty, staff and community members show up for the games. And from looking at the segregated fee budgets of the other campuses I know athletics get more dollars for their programs on other campuses from student government controlled allocation processes. We’ve got a very nice facility. Why does the Fox Journal not cover the games?
So what’s the problem here?
Friday, February 6, 2009
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Other area colleges are known for their sports--sometimes building up a nice reputation that lasts long after a winning stretch. Lawrence with its football. St. Norbert's with its women's basketball. You mentioned having a good soccer team. First I knew of it, Jim. Maybe there is some creative way to get the general Fox Cities public more involved...as supporters to help build up the "team spirit."
How does participating in athletics add to your academic experience? They are two different things.
I think that if the games were "advertised" more around school there would be a much larger turnout. I think a lot of people don't even know when the games are. For example why not post the games and maybe themes for fans on the numerous bulletin boards around school. The first thing to do in order to get more fans is to have the information generally known.
I believe that people do not show up because the teams do not have a reputation of winning. If there were maybe themes for the fans such as a white out or black out and fun activities were planned people might want to go. At Fox I feel that a lot of people do not feel that they are closely attached to it as they were to their high school. People have the feeling that UW-Fox sports are a job even when it comes to recruiting I have friends that were recruited but did not go here because of that reputation. I agree with Larry if a reputation is built and more is done to advertise more recruits might want to come here and in return the team would get better and more people would go to the games.
As Athletic Director here at UW Fox, I've been trying to increase the participation of the campus body at the athletic events. I have posted flyers on various bulletin boards around campus stating when upcoming games are occuring. I asked other students what I could do to get them to come to the games, and many have stated "nothing".
I agree that having a winning tradition will attract student-athletes to come play at Fox, but we first need to get them here and become aware of our athletics program.
So, what can I do? We put up flyers, we post the games on the web and in the Post-Crescent, we send out athletics pamphlets to area schools.
Tell me what I can do, and I will try it.
If people really think that having "theme" nights for games will attract more students to the games, we can try it. But I've heard many comments that students don't want to come back to campus for games at night.
So, please give me some good suggestions that I can try incorporating into our program. We are working hard to recruit student-athletes to get that winning tradition started.
I agree with you Pam that not a lot of students would want to come back to school to see the sporting events. But I beleive that the first thing that should be done is get the students that are already here to have school spirit. I know that this may be hard to do but I beleive that it would be a good starting point. If students would have a greater connection with the school they might want to support the athletic programs and other extra circular activities. Maybe a pep rally but the thing is there has to be an incentive to go because I know a lot of people will not just go just because. For instance the main reason why a lot of people go to the speeches and other campus activities is because professors provide extra credit for attending. I also beleive that the reason why students say nothing more can be done is because they do not have that much needed attahcment to the school. As for recruiting goes I believe that there would be more recruits that would want to go here if they did see that fan support from the student body and the community and see how interested they were in the team.
I am not surpriesed at all to see that the womens b-ball team folded this past season. While at Fox, I talked with several people several times about the need to better publicize the fox sports teams, and saw little to no reponse. This list included the fox Journal, AD Massey, Dean Perry, and Jeff Kuepper, along with bringing up the topic several times during student coucil sessions.
It seemed to me that there was no real interest in promoting Fox sports - and there should be as something like 50K annually come out of seg fees to go into the athletic department (I don't remember the exact number).
This was a real shame, as it translated into very low spectator attendance. I attended many of the girls home games to show my support for friends and school alike. These were my daughters first basketball games they had ever been to, something that my 6-year old was talking about just the other day. While the teams were not very good due to a small amount of very talented players, they always tried hard every minute, and never gave up.
I guess what I am trying to say is that without support from the school as a whole - students, staff, and administration, there is no reason to have sports at fox. There are so many ways to get the info out - e-mail, obvious advertisements in the Fox Journal, sending a writeup to the post gazette, flyers in halls/common areas, and the school website NEEDS TO BE UPDATED!!!!! This was one of my biggest frustrations with the athletic department. It would take no time at all to put the latest game stats on the website, have a brief writeup about the games, have current season stats on the website, and a schedule prominently displayed. it would take someone about an hour total per week to do this, it would not even cost anything as it could be a work-study type of thing for one credit per semester. There is absolutely no excuse to throw money into something these days if it is only going to be half-hearted, which is what Fox sports seems to be.
As a real time example of what my previous post was stressing, take a look at the scores for the Fox athletics. Women's volleyball concluded their season last October, yet their are no scores or results listed - how did the team do?? Men's basketball has not been updated since the jan 17th game. Men's Volleyball has not been updated with any scores since the season started on Jan 28th.
This is not a random occurrence or anomaly, the scores have not been updated in a timely fashion for at least three years - I am quite sure that this has been the norm before that time as well. If the athletic department does not care enough about the results, how can the students be expected to?
I am not usually someone that responds to blogs, but I am tired in general of those who wish to slam things without supporting their statements. For example, if you walk around campus you will see announcements (theater, music, education club, counseling services) about upcoming events, meetings, FYI flyers, etc - and yes, athletics does this also. Last week I saw game announcements for Men's BB, upcoming meetings for those interested in Tennis, Volleyball and Basketball, someone mentioned the meeting in one of my classes. I have recieved emails encouraging me to come and show support - I just got another one today. The sign facing 441 has athletic announcements on it, there is a sign down by the gym promoting athletics. If there is no interest from the athletics department then who is putting up these flyers and announcements? It is easy to slam things without offering suggestions to help. If you feel that strongly and think it is that simple please come forward and offer your services to update the website, raise student awareness, or better yet offer constructive ways to accomplish the overall goal. If you would rather be part of the problem instead of the solution, just keep on doing what your doing. It's easy to pay lip service and jump on a band wagon, but it's hard to come up with useful suggestions.
Apparently "anonymous" did not carefully read either of my posts as I clearly stated:
First: I am no longer a student there having been forced to move on due to credit limits for transfer, so would not see the plethora of advertisements displayed now;
Second: I talked at length in my time to many people about the situation that has not changed.
I feel that I gave a real time example about the website and the lack of updating; for other examples, look through back issues of the Press Gazette and then write back about the number of articles about UW-Fox games in the past several years. You will find them for UW-Fox/FVTC (men's) ONLY BECAUSE FVTC sends a writeup to the P-C.
Perhaps there are flyers advertising the games prominently displayed on the walls now, but they weren't a year ago or two years ago. But by your examples, this does not seem to be the case. For example, does the teacher/student v-ball game really count as an advertisement for an athletic event? Does putting a bunch of outdated stats on a board outside the gym really count as trying? Yes, I know that nearly everybody walks by there now due to the parking situation, but what about when people are able to use other doors and traffic is back to normal around the gym. You actually have to care what the teams are doing to take the walk down there to look. (Unless you are in gym or work out daily, very few people walk down that way as there are no classes by the gym.)
So no anonymous, I am not "slamming things without supporting their statements."
And P.S. I hate it when people have something to say, and think we all need to hear it, but then hide behind an anonymous tag. So I guess we both have something to gripe about now.
Have a good day, Kevin
Though I think that any attention is better than none, I have to say that I am amazed at the amount of focus SUDDENLY being directed at UW Fox Athletics. I, like Mr. Kearns have not been around much the past couple years, but I was involved enough from 1999 to 2006 to know that there has been a huge change in athletics -- but no change in campus attitude toward it. When I first started at UW Fox as a freshman, I didn't even know there was athletics offered, or games to go to. But, in 2000 I found out and started getting involved. During that time the coaches would e-mail and call the post cresent after every single game, and it would rarely make it into the paper. I personally helped put up flyers all over campus -- and no one showed up to the games. (And the teams were doing well -- winning records and everything.) The only time students would attend was when "a" (meaning one) professor would give them extra credit. During the years I was around campus and attended the games there was actually quite a bit of success: winning seasons, regional winners, and teams that made it to play in the state tournament. UW Fox hosted a couple conference tournaments and there was a lot of e-mails and flyers all over the campus - yet, no one showed up. There was rarely a year that a coule of team didn't have success. There was plenty of e-mails, flyers, and information sent into the local paper, but still at UW Fox as a whole athletics remained unimportant. Students, staff and faculty paid attention to what they want and athletics so far -- hasn't been it!
Just like in any good business, if athletics is going to be successful and an important part of the university -- it has to start from the top down. It needs to be sold as an important part of campus life -- for everyone. If everyone (faculty, staff) and the entire environment changes towards athletics in a positive way at UW Fox ... the students will follow.
Kevin Kearns is passionate enough about his points to spend a fair amount of time thinking and writing about them.
Perhaps Kevin would like to assist the Athletics Department in a volunteer Sports Information capacity?
Many colleges have people working in this capacity and the awareness of their athletic programs benefits from a dedicated promtional person working in this capacity.
From what he's said so far, it doesn't sound like Kevin would want to see additional student funds spent to hire someone to do this.
Be part of the solution, Kevin. You obviously have ideas and passion for this.
As a contributor to the Fox Journal, I'd like to answer Dean Perry's question on why the Fox Journal does not cover sports. I'd like to do so in two parts.
1) The Fox Journal does indeed cover sports, and it covers them as well as it possibly can. For instance, I am currently writing an article about the baseball club that is being formed here on campus.
2) The Fox Journal is not a daily newspaper; in fact, it is not even a weekly newspaper. The Fox Journal is published and distributed once a month, three times a semester, six times an academic year, which is all the budget allows, I'm sure. To cover hundreds of sporting events and games in only six issues is like cramming more cars into our parking lots.
This is simply a defense of the Fox Journal, not an attack against Dean Perry. I am just answering the question.
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