Letter to the editor

Why was this so hard?

After 21 games, we finally had a good student showing at a basketball game, especially for the women’s team who is 19-2 and 11-1 in the HCAC. The women’s basketball team has been doing very well this season and can very well win the conference.

Very recently, multiple organizations have held events at basketball games in order to draw a crowd. Most recently, ATO held Greek Night where students brought canned goods to get raffle tickets to win prizes and anyone who was wearing their Greek letters got free pizza. This drew a great crowd, but they lacked spirit. After a quiet first half, around half the crowd left since there was no more pizza and the prizes had been given out.

Though the student showing has been lacking, it is still there. There are always a core group of people there that are dedicated and show the true spirit of Rose-Hulman. They are always there, cheering on both the men’s and women’s teams, whether they are winning or losing, with the help of our spirited Pep Band who is always there to provide us with music during the break and cheering during the game.

Wednesday night was incredible. The Rose-Hulman student section was the best they have ever been. After realizing that the Franklin College students were loud and obnoxious, some phone calls were made to people in order to out number them. RHA was handing out Superfan T-Shirts and the spirit in the air was almost tangible.

Going out to games and cheering on your team is not just about waving some pom-poms around or painting your face. It’s about being there to support your fellow students through the hard times and the great ones. When the stands are empty, it shows lack of community support and indifference from the student body when a team is having its best season in school history. These games are free and don’t take much of your time. No one expects you to go to every single game but when you don’t make effort to go see a single game, you only hurt the community that makes up this great campus. Granted, there are people who have no interest, but that is still no reason to not go support your classmates when they are doing something great for the school.

There are plenty more games left in this season including tomorrow (Saturday) when the Men’s Basketball team will take on Transylvania at 3pm. But if you could only choose one game, mark you calendar for Saturday, February 17 when the Women’s team takes on Manchester, the team that the women are currently tied for first with. Also, keep in mind that if you’ll be in the area the weekend after break that the women’s HCAC tournament will take place Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th. The tournament will be at home if the women’s team ends the season at #1 in the HCAC.



Tim Boyer

Civil Engineering

Class of 2010