Wash. U. really does have sports fans
I walk into a sea of red. Students are standing and screaming. They cheer almost as loudly as their war paint. No, I am not at a Hoosiers’ basketball game. I am in Wash. U.’s own Fieldhouse.
On April 11, Jill Strominger argued in her column that Wash. U. is an athletically apathetic school. Clearly, she has never been to a basketball game. This past season, there was the “camaraderie, excitement and feeling of working together for a common goal” she claimed we lacked at each and every game.
Fans came out in droves to watch both our men and women’s teams work their way to Final Four births. Their support showed; the men went undefeated at home while the women only dropped one game in arguably one of the toughest venues in college sports. The fact that the students practically sit on the court does not make life easy for opponents.
Moreover, there has never been a better time to be a Bears sports fan. The school is currently third in the Director’s Cup standing for overall excellence in Division III sports. Only two teams have been unranked this year. More impressively, the volleyball and women’s basketball teams were national runners-up while the men’s basketball team ended their season as the third-best in the nation.
Plenty of groups besides Red Alert add spirit to games. The Phi Delta Theta Bomb Squad returned this year. The combined effort of the Athletic Department’s Paint the Fieldhouse Red and Thurtene Hoops Day brought close to 2,000 people to the arena. Freshman floors trek across campus together to come to games.
The students here are not apathetic when it comes to sports. Maybe it is not the majority of students that care, but it is easy to find if you want it to be part of your college experience. The schedule for every team is at bearsports.wustl.edu, which is a very accurate Web site, unlike Spark. Students do not have an excuse for saying they do not know when events are.
There are lots of great stories within our teams. Meghan Marie Fowler-Finn was the Division III women’s soccer player of the year. Basketball player Troy Ruths was the academic player of the year in addition to being on the All-USA college academic team, an honor that recognizes academic accomplishments that has nothing to do with sports, for his computer science work. Laurel Sagartz from the softball team has been the UAA player of the year four times and has been named All-American the past three years. The women’s basketball team began the season 1-3, their worst start ever under coach Nancy Fahey, and rebounded by making it to the national championship game. Furthermore, they were the only team in the Final Four without an All-American. They were a true team, not back-up players with a star.
The Bears show no sign of falling apart next season. If you missed games this year, get out and support your school the rest of this spring and fall.
Trisha is a sophomore in the School of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]
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