Lack of Communication

Is the student section of the stadium going to be general admission?  If not, how can my friends and I sit together?  Should we all show up together to pick up our tickets?  What about block seating for academic and social clubs, or the Greek organizations?  Is there a plan in the works to accommodate group seating?  In the future, will one representative from an organization be able to show up at the ticket office with the student ids from all of the members and pick up the tickets for the whole group so that they may sit together?

These are only a few of the questions that remain unanswered going into the week of the first game in our new on-campus stadium.  Many students are still asking where they go to get their tickets for the game.  I only knew about it because I was lucky enough to have an employee of the athletic department in one of my summer classes.  Otherwise, I never would have seen the email about student vouchers, since it went straight into my spam catcher.  

One final question.  Why has the communication not been better regarding the football season?  It seems to me that the students should be a bit higher on the priority list when it comes to football.  Isn’t the school trying to build a winning program?  To do that, you need better recruits.  To get better recruits, you need a few things: a winning team, which we are supposedly working on; for offensive recruits, you need a sexy, productive offense and likewise for the defense; you need to have your former players playing on Sundays in the NFL; lastly, your program needs to be playing in nationally televised games.

To accomplish that last thing, you need a frenzied atmosphere.  Yes, a frenzied atmosphere could be  listed in the things you need to land top-notch recruits, but it’s a two-edged sword.  ESPN doesn’t want to broadcast a game with a silenced crowd, just like coaches and Athletic Directors don’t want to invite potential recruits to games with lame crowds.  Potential recruits want to see fans going nuts, like they do in The Swamp.  They want to hear the roar of the crowd, the thunder of thousands of feet stomping on the bleachers and the deafening chant of the fight song.  These are the same things networks want to see.

But networks and recruits won’t see those things from a crowd filled with local businessmen and women.  They won’t see them from local executives from Suntrust or Bank of America, who are only at the game as invited guests of an administration hoping to sell naming rights to the stadium or to gain enough monetary commitments to ensure that future stages of the stadiums construction are financed.  That’s who all the tickets for the first game are going to.  Not to the students, who would likely be the ones creating the frenzy within the crowd.    

The school is more concerned with it’s image within the community than with the student body.  The school is banking on the old Field of Dreams mentality of, “If you build it, they will come.”  

They seem to think that the stadium alone will turn this program in the same direction that other young programs like USF and FAU are heading.  Without the support of the students, it won’t happen.  Like I’ve said before, the lack of interest in the sports culture at FIU is amazing to me.  I know this entry is making me seem like an anti sports guy but I am far from that.  I’ll be wearing my blue and gold to every sporting event that I can make it too this year and next.  Hopefully well beyond that, too.  But there aren’t many like me on campus.   When I asked other students about going to the open house at the stadium last week, they looked at me as if I was nuts.  I get similar looks when  I ask about football game attendance.  It seems that, for the most part, the student body could care less about football at FIU and ignoring them and leaving them out of the loop isn’t going to change that.

It all goes back to the age old chicken versus the egg question.  Can you get the support of the student body without a winning program?  Probably.  But can you get a winning program without the support of the student body?  The administration seems to be banking on it. 

Based on the results of last weeks poll, like me, you are all most annoyed by the know it all in class.  Thanks to the nine of you who voted.

ELI3   

There's One in Every Class

You know how every semester, no matter the class, you always get those same kinds of people in class?  If it isn't the student that can't be on time to class to save their life, it's the person that constantly forgets to put their phone on vibrate.  One of personal favorites is the guy who not only comes in late, but comes in late carrying a bag from Subway or Burger King.  Not only is he going to disrupt the class by entering late, but he also plans on continuing his annoying existence in class by making everyone listen to his paper bag or sandwich wrapper rustle as he eats.  You're already late jackass, just stay in the food court and eat. 

But as annoying as the late enterer/eater and the phone ringer guys may be, there is no one worse than the know-it-all.  You know the one.  He just can't wait to raise his hand or talk over anyone who dares debate him.  He or she may even argue with the professor on occasion.

I've got one of those in my Poetry class right now.  This guy never shuts up.  I don't mind people that like to speak up in class since it alleviates pressure from me to do so.  I'm not exactly forthcoming with my theories on what some 16th century English poet is trying to say in the form of a Petrarchian sonnet.     

My main beef is that this is material that is open to all kinds of different interpretation yet this guy argues his theories as if he was the one dipping the poet's quill in ink for him as he wrote (what do I mean by dipping his quill in ink?).  He raises his voice to squash any potential differing interpretation like a child who covers his ears in order to block out mommy telling him to eat his veggies.  I can't count how many times in the four meetings we've had this semester that the professor himself has said that there are no wrong answers, yet this guy remains vigilant.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the know-it-all is the guy who asks the professor to repeat every word he or she says.  You guessed it, I've got one of them in a class, too.  This guy raises his hand every time the prof stops to take a breath.  I understand that the professors in upper division classes seem to lecture twice as fast as they do in the lower division.  It is for that reason that I went to the bookstore and bought one of those mini cassette recorders this week.  Is there a way in which I could subtlety suggest that this boner do that?

I'm going to put up a poll this week asking who you, my very few loyal readers, find the most annoying.  If you think I've left an annoying person out, feel free to share.

On a sports note, my request for a little love for the volleyball team did not go unheard as ESPN posted a nice article on the Lady Panthers at ESPNU.com.  

Here is the link to the article: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3567688