Volante Article on Student Support

[gorabbits]

Is this article from the Volante accurate? and if so what are your suggested solutions?



www.volanteonline.com/sports/where-s-the-love/article_634d6a7a-1d96-11e2-acca-0019bb30f31a.html

[squabby]

Gummy bears soaked in vodka/ever clear will keep a buzz going! Offer a 1/4 tuition waiver with student ID, must be present to get it - announce 5 minutes after the conclusion of game! Have students produce a 2 minute video to be played on the scoreboard during stoppage of play! Put a decibel counter in the dome. Kids are all about instant gratification.

[obc]

IMO you will not get success begging and pleading students to come to the games - in fact that may get the opposite effect.

To get students to come and stay the following would help:

Win
Exciting offense
Beer sales
Renovated Dome - get rid of the bleachers - they look like crap and make the venue seem very small time.
State of the Art HD replay Board
Better sound system
Better lighting for the Dome - ever see how NDSU opens a game in the FargoDome - they have lighting that can shut off making it dark - use a spotlight and the scoreboard before turning on the lights when they take the field. Our current lighting is the type that takes a while to warm up and turn on.
Scholarship lottery mentioned before - must be present to win - all students are entered automatically - that would make it a 1/10000 chance that it would even cost the University anything.
Advertise tailgating more - amazing to me how many people I meet that have no idea how tailgating has taken off. IMO the amount of tailgating can at least double from where we are now with the right promotion.

[cantguard3]

Oct 25, 2012 9:20:47 GMT -6 obc said:

IMO you will not get success begging and pleading students to come to the games - in fact that may get the opposite effect.

To get students to come and stay the following would help:

Win
Exciting offense
Beer sales
Renovated Dome - get rid of the bleachers - they look like crap and make the venue seem very small time.
State of the Art HD replay Board
Better sound system
Better lighting for the Dome - ever see how NDSU opens a game in the FargoDome - they have lighting that can shut off making it dark - use a spotlight and the scoreboard before turning on the lights when they take the field. Our current lighting is the type that takes a while to warm up and turn on.
Scholarship lottery mentioned before - must be present to win - all students are entered automatically - that would make it a 1/10000 chance that it would even cost the University anything.
Advertise tailgating more - amazing to me how many people I meet that have no idea how tailgating has taken off. IMO the amount of tailgating can at least double from where we are now with the right promotion.

As one of the rare students who stay for the entire game, it does boil down to people starting to sober up and get tired. To be honest, games sometimes do drag on, and students get bored, so why not go to a house and drink for the rest of the day. It does make me mad but the list of things that could be used would help. The last game I remember everyone staying was the Eastern Washington game and we all know how that turned out. Bring bigger names in, going to Howard Wood is what killed this game. I wasn't going to drive 80 miles there and back to watch a football game. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are on the football team, but I wasn't about to sit there and sit with a mixture of college kids and parents to watch a football game. The other thing is that half the people that go to tailgate before the game go to pros after the police clear the lot out. More than one thing has to happen before the crowd stays for the entire game.

[Yote 53]

So you're saying we're a school of straight up alcoholics. Got it.

I've gone to quite a few games at a school that knows how to party. Games at Iowa are packed and the students stay the whole game (the last game against PSU I excuse them). They usually start tailgating at the crack of dawn, some I've seen had not stopped from the night before. Point is, maybe students are doing it wrong. Maybe they aren't drinking ENOUGH before the game to give them enough carry over to make it through the game. Heck, at USD you can even go out at half and crack a few and head back into the game. Maybe the students should come tailgate with us old farts. We seem to have a pretty good time tailgating and there are more than a few beers consumed. We also seem to make it the whole way through the game.

Actually, I think the issue is priorities. Students just don't care enough to stay.

Edit to say: I agree with you about going to Sioux Falls. It was unfair to take a home game away from the student body.

[coyote61]

I know one thing they need to stay away from on the student side is the same seating as the east side. Stay with the bleacher style seating like Howard Wood. The kids like to stand and those permanent seats just won't work. The kids will have more fun with bleachers.

[coyotega]

The Sioux Falls game was strictly an AD call. If you want to be critical of Sayler's decision, just come out and say it. I think it was a good move, not so much for this year, but for the future. Florida students go to Jacksonville every year for the Fl game and have a helluva time. Tx and Okla students go to Dallas for the OU game. Sioux Falls is a decent town and the USD students probably just need to learn to make a weekend out of it versus it being a commute. Wouldn't hurt for USD to take the lead and have a world class free picnic for any USD students.

[sd4life]

So the NDSU game next year will be in SF too? I doubt it.

[Yote 53]

Yes, I'm not going to hide it. I will be critical of playing that game in Sioux Falls. I think it was a huge mistake and it resulted in alienating long time Coyote supporters and local Vermillion business people.

This has been rehashed several times on this board and is off topic for this thread so I'll drop it.