EDITORIAL: A championship culture?
What has happened to the championship culture of Central Michigan University athletics?
Without a winning team on the field or a tailgate to enjoy beforehand, students have had little incentive to attend home football games. With this week's news that fans will no longer be allowed to re-enter games after leaving, one thing is becoming quite clear: the athletics department doesn't care enough about the students who fund it.
Athletics Director Dave Heeke said attendees next year will have to scan their ID cards or tickets to get into games and will not be permitted to re-enter if they need to exit the area. While the new policy allows CMU to more accurately count students in the attendance figure, a number the department inflated last season, are we expected to believe there is no scanning program that can recognize a person entered twice and count them once?
This policy seems more like another control mechanism being put in place, passed through under the farcical pretense that it is protecting students. This move is another indication that our administration no longer views students as responsible, independent adults.
Taken together with the strict tailgating policy and revision to the overnight guest policy in residence halls, the re-entry ban reveals a slight, gradual regression toward administrative parenting absent from campus for decades.
“We try to be careful with students going in and out because normally when they do that they come back in a condition we don’t want them in,” Heeke said in a previous article.
Those do not sound like the words of someone who values student participation in athletics. A few jerks getting drunk and making fools of themselves at sporting events does not justify seriously eroding the privileges of all students. Alumni and visiting fans are also known to imbibe, usually responsibly — where is the evidence suggesting students are the worst offenders?
While it's likely Kelly/Shorts Stadium will be full of fans next season, with Michigan State, Navy and Western Michigan all on the home schedule, this sends an awful message to current and future students. It will likely hurt already dwindling attendance when there are not big-name programs in town.
It's safe to say students foot a stiff bill each year for athletics, with its current account composing $23.1 million of CMU's budget. If constant restrictions and changes are going to be made within the system, student participation should be considered.
Whether the football team is winning or losing, what matters most is a body of students supporting and cheering behind them. It doesn't matter if our athletes have a championship mentality if there are no students to revel in their victories.
Between the state of tailgate and elimination of re-entry, the Chippewas will soon find themselves playing in an empty stadium.
