More Ideas To Boost Student Interest In Bruin Athletics
by wildthang on Dec 10, 2009 4:55 AM PST
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PrintBumped. GO BRUINS. -N
Hello fellow Bruins. This will be my first fanshot, and my second overall post here, so excuse me if this post is too long, too forward, or too ill-constructed. I've been reading Bruins Nation for awhile now, and just joined several days ago. I'm a fifth year student graduating this winter. Now you know about me. So I'm going to try and just attack every problem with student attendance-football and basketball-how I see fit. I've been kicking around a lot of ideas and drinking way too many beers this weekend but I'm gonna give this a shot. I made a big 4 page outline for this, and I don't even do that for actual graded papers, so take that for what its worth. So as I should be studying, I give you this.
Anyways, just to break this up, I will have a section with thoughts about football and thoughts about basketball. Now far be it from me to actually be correct about this stuff, but these are just based off some of the experiences I have had and some of the frustrations that go with it, as well as some general opinion mixed in.
PROBLEM
Less than desired attendance at UCLA Home Football and Basketball Games
FOOTBALL
Some of the possible reasons for poor attendance:
The football season starts the in late August and early September. The students don't arrive to school until late September. Therefore, a vast majority of students don't even have the opportunity to attend the first home game, and often the second. (The last two years, the second home game has taken place during move in weekend. Some of the more enterprising new students, or 2nd year dorm students may make the effort to get out to the Rose Bowl, but I am not going to pretend the attitude of the majority of these students is to get out to see the game above all else)
This can lead to situations where students may not feel as involved or intensely supportive of the football team, especially if the first few games go poorly. If they see UCLA getting a beatdown 59-0, it just may create a more ambivalent attitude toward the football season. Getting to be at those first few games is important. You start to create weird unreciprocated bonds with players who dominate early (RAHIM!!). On that note, its probably a little disheartening to come out for the home opener as a player and see a big gray mass of unfilled concrete and bleacher in the student section.
I doubt we have the power to alter the academic calendar, so the best that can be done is have the football team make extra efforts to schedule two early away games. If students are missing two games a year by default it definitely makes the student-fan experience more casual. There isn't much else we can do with this situation. Just hopefully as the team improves, we can be in national consciousness early on in the season, which would should excite the newcomers.
Another issue, and I've read discussions about it here before, is the hassle of getting to the Rose Bowl. There shouldn't be any excuse week to week getting out there, but even so, I don't think UCLA does a great job of advertising, or getting students out to the games. For having a stadium in Pasadena, this administration should be tripping over themselves, and doing just about everything but having Gene Block or the great Charles E. Young personally escort students to the RB.
I have never taken a UCLA sponsored bus out there, but I would hope these things are rocking parties. My greatest fear has always been getting on a bus that is literally only a bus to the game. I've been fine getting to the game through various means, but I could see how a group of friends could easily get discouraged if they do not have a car, or greek, and cannot or did not get bus tickets by the Thursday deadline. Obviously, as dedicated fans, efforts for the next trip or tailgate to the Rose Bowl are made almost as soon as we get home from the game just played, but fans that are not quite hardcore, could easily be turned off trying to get out there.
On this note, parking at the rose bowl is expensive. 15 bucks is no small amount. I've had situations occur where a ride falls through, or something gets screwed up, and I'm working the phones, and it still doesn't come through, so I have to take myself, or maybe myself and one other. 15 bucks cash ain't easy. Then there is gas, beer, and subway $ 5 footlong money if the tailgate option isn't on and suddenly you're looking at close to fifty bucks.
This is why I would like to see UCLA at least offer the option for students to have their tickets subsidized by 15 dollars less, or allow students to simply add in the cost of parking to their season ticket total. Hell, you could probably do it so people only have to 5-10 dollars per game and probably make money. Then you just give them parking passes with the tickets and you're golden. This makes the potential for unforseen expenses like parking less of a problem. Obviously, this won't bring out 500 more fans, but like I said before, UCLA should be doing EVERYTHING they can to make the trip to the Rose Bowl as easy as possible.
The most important element for attendance is simply going to be winning. I hate to say it, but most people are bandwagon fans. Its sad but true. Most people, (me excluded as a lifelong chiefs/royals diehard), just don't commit the time/money/effort/emotion into rooting for a losing team, or even a mediocre one. Its true almost everywhere. We just don't have, but hopefully do someday, a historically great football program like Notre Dame or Michigan or Penn St where football is king. It takes decades of constant excellence to solidify that. It has to almost become a generational thing. This isn't impossible to instill, we're only 10 years into a new century, so we have 90 years to go to be the college football powerhouse of the 21st century. I wish we had a rare program that people we show up for come hell or high water, but at this point we do not.
Even USC suffers from the bandwagon problem, just look at their record from 98-03 (98 was the earliest attendance data I could find) and the resulting attendance. Between 98-01 they went 7-5, 6-6, 5-7, 6-6, and averaged around 57,000 per game. An 11 win season in 02 boosted attendance by 9k a game, and 12 wins in 03 resulted in another 11k per game. Would be interesting to see the number of students as a percent of the crowd, but I don't think that data exists. Basically, people are bandwagon jumping sheep. Its a pain in the ass, but I guess thats life.
Thats about all I have for football, now I'm going to move to basketball, and a little more technical problem solving, but please, point out any flaws, errors, crazy assumptions, or if you just hate it.
BASKETBALL
The first assumption we have to make in tackling basketball attendance is if there is a high enough demand from game to game among students that they would attend at some reasonable price. Basically, on any given night can we fill Pauley Pavilion on sheer interest in going to a basketball game? If there simply are too many students that would rather be doing something else then the following is irrelevant. I do believe however that there is plenty of demand to fill Pauley for at the very least the KU game, and at least every conference game. This leads me to believe there is an inefficiency in getting tickets to those who are willing to pay to go see the Bruins at PP.
Many have suggested some form of a ticket transfer system in order for people to give their tickets away to others. There are several problems with this, first unless UCLA "taxes" or puts a surcharge on transfers, they would be unlikely to allow it because of potential lost revenue from standby tickets. Second, the ticket transfer system assumes that Bruin X who cannot go to the game knows a specific Bruin Y who wants that ticket and would like the transfer. It does nothing to solve the problem of Bruin Z who wants to go the game, but does not know anyone willing or able to transfer their ticket.
At the very least though, this system would be an improvement upon not transferring any tickets. I have never tried the standby tickets, so if anyone can fill me in on how many people are usually waiting or how many people actually get the tickets that would be great.
My preference in the great ticket controversy would be to set up a sort of ticket "buyback" system. It seems to make sense to me, but if it doesn't let me know and I'll just drift to the back of the room and we will forget about all of this.
My first thought is that tickets should not be free, if we continue the earlier assumption that there is enough insufficiently allocated demand, there should be some price point at which we could have an at capacity student section. I understand it may be hard for some to afford tickets, but season tickets should be a financial investment. Not something you do and go when you feel like it.
My "solution" buyback program would go a little something like this: (and if it doesn't make sense or is just awful, remember I am going off mostly secondhand knowledge as this is my first season at UCLA getting bball tix.
It would involve creating a priority system where anyone with season tickets to a game can wait in a "priority" line for a wristband (never underestimate how much people love wearing those damn stupid wristbands, no joke, you might see someone with 20 wristbands if this system goes down). This would work just like normal campouts, you hang out there for a couple days, do your thing, and then around 4-5 hours before game time they hand out the special priority bracelets with numbers corresponding to your spot in line. You just have to limit how many of these you can give out to eliminate line snipers. Allow these people to get in the game and hour and a half early and let them in in limited groups according to their number, kinda like how Southwest does their boarding procedure. Boom, perfect, you just took care of the hardcore fans.
The next group, the normal priority group, have to come and pick up their bracelets any time from CTO. They get to do it anytime its open, but they get lesser priority. Its only one more step in going to a game, and if you want to go to the game, but not wait in line, you get second priority. Let these folks in about 45 minutes before game time.
This next step is where the buyback comes into play. This would require anyone without tickets to the game they want to go to to sign up online in the same time frame as the previous two. So at the cutoff time (4-5 hours before gametime) all the season ticket holders who did not pickup bracelets have their tickets released. However, these season ticket holders also have the option of selling their ticket back to UCLA. By reselling it, they could pick up a little money and allow someone else to go to the game.
The most major problem under this system is how to deal with UCLA overselling games. I guess you would have to limit the resale to a certain number allowed.
Then, maybe a few hours before gametime, a lottery is held if there are more students wanting to go than tickets available, or tickets are just sold if they are more tickets than students. The logistics of how many tickets sold and how many should be made available would be important after overselling, but for right now, assume that we are only dealing with exactly the amount of tickets available for the exact number of seats.
I think it would be the coolest thing ever to be hanging out pregaming or something with some buddies, and one is waiting on a ticket lottery email. You can't tell me if that email came in and it said "congrats, you won tonights ticket lottery" and another buddy got to go, it wouldn't bring the house down. That would make my damn night. The winners of these lotteries will be allowed in maybe 15/20 minutes before game time.
I have a little Pro/Con list for this, and I'm getting pretty tired, so this might be more sloppy. I'll try and edit later.
Benefits
*would give students option of getting a little money back for their unused tickets.
*would give ucla opportunity to resell tickets in a more efficient manner
*would make getting tickets for non season ticket holders much easier (simple log on to ucla and sign up, couldn't take more than 30 seconds right?) I would have killed for the chance to go to few games my first couple years.
*Increases efficiency in distribution of tickets to students who want to be at the game
*still allows diehard fans to camp out for the priority bracelet.
*picking up a regular bracelet is simple, if you want to go to the game, how hard would it be to snag a bracelet the day before a game and head back to your dorm/apt/place of living?
*Would be cool to have some tangible way of remembering games, would be neat to have a collection of colored UCLA wristbands, maybe print them with date and opponent. Right now students have no way to hold on to something and say " I was there".I love keeping all my sporting stubs. Ticket stubs are cool. Especially for memorable games.
*Allow more access for non season ticket holders to get to some games
CONS
*Rough draw plan, would be hard sell, would the cost of implementing it be worth it to UCLA?
*bracelet intensive plan. Shouldn't be THAT expensive right?
*would create an additional step for anyone wanting to go to game beyond just showing up
*If ucla is worried about "black market" there could potentially be one for bracelets.
*Could be hard to implement if demand for tickets keeps falling
*How do you offer buyback? Do you risk having a fixed price for each game? Do you offer different games at different prices ( I assume you would have to offer more in a buyback for a KU ticket as opposed to csu wherever) Do you just take whatever you made back in day of lottery sales, rake half and split the other half with the buyback people or what? Questions that must be answered.
Also, buyback must be limited in someway, especially if the current policy to oversell games remains intact.
If however, the problem isn't the inefficient distribution, then it needs to be addressed at a higher level. Indoctrinate these kids when they get here. I mean I didn’t attend the orientation, but you have these damn kids for three days right? Send them to pauley or something and play them some videos of the greatest moments in UCLA history. Make them know all the things they should be proud of. Make them know the UCLA greats, football and basketball. Make them tour the hall of fame. Make them learn every chant cheer and god knows what else. Make them come out of orientation with the burning desire to make a stop at USC on the way home and do something passionately pro-ucla (im not going to encourage something classless and unbruinlike, but if it happens it happens). Make them Bruins for life before they ever start their classes at UCLA.
Sorry that was so long. Ive been thinking about this too much. Now I need to go to bed so I can study for finals tomorrow. Hopefully there is some decent thoughts or insight there. Hopefully you won't be asking for however many minutes it took you to read this, if you read it all, back. Apologies if this is too much from a new member. I, like everyone at BN, have a passion for UCLA athletics, and I want just like everyone to be the best program around.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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I remember orientation was a disapointing afterthought at UCLA.
My high school did a better job of whipping up fan participation. One of the problems is that the orientation was held towards the end of the 3 day orientation period, and of all the events we were asked to attend, it was labeled “mandatory.”
I suggest (Morgan Center? Murphy Hall? Bueller? Bueller?) this orientation should be the very first one held for incoming classes. Beyond yell leaders teaching them how to 8 clap, we should find some impassioned speakers that can SHOW (not tell) Bruin Pride. Athletes can be asked to come in and speak and tell us of big games they’ve been in and what a difference the fans make. They can tell personal stories about why they personally “dislike” certain schools that shall remain nameless.
One thing my high school did that worked really well was assemble the entire student body into the basketball gym and have a large pep rally. Freshman sat in one section, Sophomores sat in another, Juniors sat in theirs and Seniors generally ditched. Before cheers had even begun, sections such as the Junior’s section would yell out group cheers like “Freshman Suck!” We had group cheers by which you could grade participation. For example, if we did a “U! C! L! A!” chant wherein each section yells out a letter, you would know right away who was not holding up there end of the bargain. Usually, after each such cheer, the Sophomores or Juniors would show their displeasure with another “Freshman Suck!” cheer. Needless to say as a Freshman, it did not take long to get the idea, and learn real quick how to verbally defend yourself against the upperclassmen.
It was done once at the start of the year, and amazingly effective. We took pride in generally beating our opponents on the field and in the stands. We used to out yell and out cheer Mater Dei (our rival) all the time and they pretty much always packed the stands while we had a much smaller fan base.
Rant over.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Santa Ana.
We liked Servite cuz you guys hated Mater Dei too.
My senior year a girl came to SAHS from Servite. She had a lot of great stories about your guys’ rivalry.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Errata:
it should read:
of all the events we were asked to attend, it was not labeled "mandatory."
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Football Scheduling
You raise a very good point about the football scheduling and arrival of students. I often thought about this when I was attending school. I came from northern California, so it was not necessarily a quick drive to make it to games before school started. When I moved out into an apartment, I was able to get to LA early enough to start to see the early games. I especially enjoyed the year that we beat both Alabama and Michigan in the preseason when both were top five teams at the time.
Back to football scheduling. I absolutely agree that having home games prior to the start of school or even on move-in day will reduce attendance. Scheduling away games at the beginning of the season could be a great way to allow more students an opportunity to go to games when they are in session. On the other hand early season away games can be very challenging. Starting a season with multiple away games can increase the likelihood of a losing record. You could potentially dig yourself a hole through the early season schedule. Having a losing record at the beginning of the school year would now have a dampening effect on attendance. Thinking back to those two Alabama and Michigan teams, they both suffered some early losses and their seasons never really recovered to the lofty preseason heights. You could argue that they were “exposed” or perhaps the early losses shattered confidence that took too long to rebuild. Maybe there were elements of both, but the risks of early season losses clearly exist.
Given that there are certainly pros and cons to playing more away games at the beginning of the year, I think with smart scheduling, UCLA could potentially increase attendance by shifting home games later.
Good points overall!
your point that tickets will never be free
is dead on. Its simple economics, as long as there is a market for these tickets CTO will sell them at a price, it cannot afford to let the student ticket revenue fade away.
Regarding your football plan. The only problem I have with it is this: To include student parking in everyones tickets would not be possible because
a) many students, especially those in the dorms who do not have cars/parking take the busses, which they already have to pay for ($6 IIRC but its been a couple years since ive had to take one so idk if the price has changed) To now charge them for taking the bus AS WELL as for parking in their student tickets would not fly well.
b) There is no motive for the university to take up the task of subsidizing student parking, they have no incentive to do so. The rosebowl parking and staff is not UCLA staff, and the owner of that golf course, or the city of pasadena prob. has discretion in setting price for parking, it is not up to UCLA officials unfortunately how much parking costs for attending these games.
your idea of playing the first few games on the road is a good idea but i dont think that when football operations plans these games they are really thinking about how many students will be at the game rather than how will the opponent help get our players geared up for the regular season. Why would our athletic department agree to playing SDSU in SD and miss out on all the revenue an extra home game brings in?
Please forgive me if I have interpreted any of your arguments wrong or if there are inherent flaws in my logic but thats just how I see it
c)
I think I got a bit lost in my own thinking on the parking
My basic kind of desire was to have fewer “pop up” costs as possible. Basically, if you can find a way to make parking included in the up front purchase of season tickets, you might make it a little bit easier for some people.
I buy Rose Bowl parking through UCLA
Parking passes are sold through UCLA to season ticket holders. The CTO could absolutely sell student parking passes along with student tickets. They could either be general parking (go where the cops tell you) or they could isolate a specific area (lot) for student parking.
Parking
One way to avoid the cost of parking is to take the Gold Line to Memorial Park station, walk a couple of blocks to Parsons, and take the free shuttle. Total cost $1.25 each way, or $5.00 total if you transfer from the red or purple line, at Union Station.
I remember when parking was free on the golf course, and I think when they started to collect money to park, that all the proceeds went to the city and none to the Athletic Dept. or to the school.
regarding the start of the season before students arrive:
We could make it a point to schedule games later so our season starts and ends a week or two later. We all saw the difference it makes perception wise when teams play on Championship Saturday while others remain home.
Case in point: Mark Ingram probably sealed the Heisman vote by having a good game against Florida in the SEC Championship. Toby Gerhart has better numbers, and in my opinion the better back. But, Stanford had already concluded it’s season and did not play last this last weekend.
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
Let me preface this by saying...
This is not an attack on your idea, wildthang. I simply intend to use your idea as a stepping stone to my greater criticism. You make the point that the resale of tickets is very “inefficient.” I agree, wholeheartedly. However, it is inefficient in that it is heavily stacked in Marketing’s favor. Similarly, you could call Vegas a very inefficient system, but good luck selling the casino owners on a more fair/efficient system.
That’s the problem I have with marketing: they have the casino owner mentality, where the objective is to squeeze every last cent out of the game-attending crowd (see also: absurd snack bar prices, etc.) They should have the mentality that it is their job to do whatever they can to support CBH (and CRN, and all the other coaches, but I’m specifically addressing basketball here). That means filling Pauley. That means a student section full of loud students. That also probably means taking a financial loss compared to the current system, which is why it is unlikely.
I agree.
Pauley should be full. Marketing should have that as its goal. If they want to maximize profit, then they would certainly cut most students out of the picture. My solution – let every student in who wants to get in for “free.” The school could just bury the revenue loss with another $1.00 a quarter fee increase and it’s likely that no one would notice.
Would probably be $8-12/quarter to be revenue-neutral
In a perfect world, this is how UCLA would operate – UNC and Virginia, for example, use this funding model for student tickets without any apparent problem.
formerly bruinhoo
Difference between fairness and efficiency
I’m sure from purely marketing doing a job, as long as tickets sales remain relatively stable YoY, physical attendance is less of a concern.
The resale of tickets is IMO inefficient because it does a poor job of reallocating unused tickets and capitalizing on another potential revenue stream, not because of who has access to them.
It would not make any sense for them to take any sort of financial loss. We want our bball programs to have lots of financial leeway. If they decided to enact a system where they were losing money at the gate, then problems would begin to crop up in a lot of other places.
I’m sure the priority of everyone involved is a full Pauley Pavilion. Its an easier sell, its more fun, and it brings in money. I just don’t think it makes any sense business wise to do so.
I'm a hard core capitalist, and I also don't think that students have as many "rights" as I did when I was a student
That said, I think that every student has a right to attend every campus event. Some campus events charge admission, but to my memory, most don’t. Campus events are part of the university growth process. I saw Dave Brubeck perform. I saw the Platters. I listened to Martin Luther King speak. There were other things like this, and all contributed to my student experience. Back then, every student had a right to see all the basketball and football games. My recollection was that the price of admission was free, although there was a certain opportunity cost in that you had to stand in lines to get in.
The finance people can put their considerable skill at manipulating and massaging numbers to work in connection with the sale of tickets to non-students. (I’m against gouging recent grads, but I know the world is against me on that, too.) I’m very confident that those financial wizards can figure a way to make it a revenue-neutral event to give free tickets to all all students who care to attend.
OK, I know I’m a voice crying out in the wilderness on this. I’m straining my geezer memory and cannot remember any game at Pauley at which there was an empty seat. I just can’t do it. We even filled up the Sports Arena before Pauley opened, or at least it seemed that way to me. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that there was no cost (or at most something like a quarter) for the tickets. I will grant you that having Coach in charge and guys like Goodrich, et al., on the court may have had something to do with it.
Yeah, I realize fair and efficient aren’t the same thing, and that the connection I made was a little tenuous, but that is truly the feeling I get as an objective observer (I don’t really get gouged on anything but the food.)
I think that the marketing folks are too focused on the bottom line, and are missing their greater purpose. Any fool can sell tickets, but the university employs them to sell the brand. As has been pointed out (I think) earlier in this thread, there is fairly little exposure for the UCLA brand outside of Westwood. I think that the success in ticket sales they are currently enjoying (riding, really) is despite them, not because of them.
The Den is practically doing half their job for them- drumming up student interest (which I think is the most important thing the Den does) and organizing the students once they’re there. They don’t deserve a quarter of the disrespect they’ve been shown by Marketing. That’s what I mean when I say they’re too focused on the bottom line: who in their right mind willingly and continually hampers someone who’s doing his job for him?
another issue
is the early start times. It is a bit more difficult getting to a noon game than say a 3pm or 5pm game. A later game would also allow fans to enjoy taigaiting a bit more. I’m guessing this might also deter some students from attending because they don’t want to get out of bed so early on a saturday. Also, Don’t know if anybody has pointed this out but at every game I attended this year I noticed fans (students, reg. fans and alumns) tailgaiting but not making it to the game. I don’t know what can be done about this if anything but there should be no reason for anybody to bring a flat screen hdtv and their directv satellite to tailgate at the rose bowl.
start times are tv-driven
so that isn’t something that anything can be done about.
Re flat screen/directv – people do often bring those to watch other games before the game; also, the Rose Bowl announced and half-heartedly enforced a policy of ‘no drinking on the golf course once the game has started’, which would deter some people from tailgating but not going to the game.
Now, if we could just get them to start selling beer at the games… :-)
by britishbruin on Dec 10, 2009 8:42 AM PST up reply actions
(and I know the beer thing would never happen... just sayin' )
by britishbruin on Dec 10, 2009 8:42 AM PST up reply actions
Yes they are TV driven
but that doesn’t explain why our games versus Washington and ASU were so early when they were only being televised on Fox Sports Prime Ticket. Also, there were a number of more compelling games they could have gone with if they wanted a National audience on those days. For example, the ONLY people interested in watching UCLA vesus Washington was…UCLA and Washington.
Oh UCLA you sweet bitch, you've BRUINed me for anything else.
We bring the TV's to watch the 9am Big 11 games
I know this is like yelling at the tide, but Students, GET THE HELL OUT OF BED! Is it that hard to wake up before noon 3-5 times a year. Guess what, if you get to the Rose Bowl by 10am you can be 3 beers down by 10:15am.
Good Point
Nothing wrong with taking the dish to watch other football games.
Same day
Great ideas, slight criticism of a potential releasing of tickets on the same day of the game. I could be mistaken but I have a feeling that if a lot of students don’t have a ticket before the actual day of the game they will not put forth the effort and won’t think it is worth the trouble for trying to get a ticket at the last second/within a few hours of tipoff.
by NoOceanJustLakers on Dec 10, 2009 11:16 AM PST reply actions
I agree. Going to wait in line on game night is tough if you dont' know you're getting in.
This doesn’t mean that the ideas are impractical, it’s just my opinion. Game day lines don’t personally appeal to me that much, so I couldn’t expect someone else to get excited about going to Pauley and waiting in line if there was uncertainty about getting in. On the other hand, if I were to find out earlier that I could make a game (like first thing in the morning in an email) I like the idea more. Additionally, I think if you were to do some sort of buyback, most people who have tickets and know they’re not going to the game likely know they can’t make it at least a day beforehand, so why not give them a deadline to get their money back the night before, and then send out last minute ticket offers electronically the night before, or the morning of? In example, the people who weren’t going to the Kansas game because of finals probably know they weren’t going long before game time. For those without season tickets, I think the game would have been a nice study break for a lot of people.
Still, lots of good ideas and effort in this thread. There are so many ways to do fill the student section more easily that I’m starting to think getting a consensus is going to be as easy as getting a consensus on health care.
I just graduated last year, and I can honestly say that
Student apathy is at an all time high right now…Or low, I’m not sure which one is more correct, but I think the administration has done everything in its power to completely remove any school spirit as well as limit any success students have in demonstrating their pride about their school.
First off, you brought up some very good points about the early non-conference games. I am also from nor cal as another person pointed out in the comments thread, and it is a 6 hour drive to make it back to la. Not to mention, moving in to the Residential halls was always scheduled incredibly late. During my time of living in the dorms, ( I lived in them for 3 years), I became incredibly active in floor governments and eventually became a Program Assistant. (I think only Sunset Village has those anymore). But basically, it was the Program Assistants responsibility to let everyone in their designated building know about events on UCLA’s campus. And to plan fun things to do together.
This is where the excitement came in for me. If anyone remembers those giant Cork boards hanging in study lounges in the dorms, PA’s were responsible for creating themes for them. I decided to use a few of them to point out big sports events (Including all the basketball and football schedules). Essentially, the idea was that by posting all this information People could socially engage in conversations about the games and hopefully come up with plans to see them. I took it a step further and began to coordinate group events to go see games. I printed out sign up sheets for people in the building. By creating an atmosphere of community within these halls, people came out of their Shells (Literally, the tiny cubicles, many of them did not like to have their door open to). People began to sign up and see familiar names. At first it was a few people that were interested but as word spread throughout the building more people became interested in finding out the next event that we could go to as a whole.
What I am driving at with this, is that somewhere in the past 2 years (Prior to me graduating and after me graduating) I feel that the community of students has entirely slipped. Undie run is squashed (Though I never really cared too much for it, as I somehow always had finals the thursday after it). But, even after we beat $UC, 13-9. Myself and several of my fraternity brothers were showered with mace that could have blinded Jesus himself. But really, all that has been happening is that any potential moment of ecstasy a UCLA student may engage in, is almost immedietly subdued as a threat by the UCLA administration. This energy has been getting stripped away by the UCLA administration. It is also happening to the greek system.
I would say the greek system is the pulse for school spirit. It is the lifeblood that fuels nationalism and pride in an institution. Granted, there are many irresponsible things that happen (as a result of people not understanding how to have fun, SAFELY). But, I know that several Fraternities, including my own, have had success in finding a balance between fun, and responsible conduct.
What I find more frustrating is that I remember having our alumni come to events and tell all of the undergrads these riduculous stories of things they did as UCLA students, They would ask if we still did those things, and we would just stare at them mind boggled that nobody got in trouble for those things. To be perfectly frank, It was essentialy the Wild West for College students compared to what the Greek system has evolved in to now . But, as one can imagine, when students were allowed to celebrate, the Greek system was able to pump energy in to the Student body. I’m not sure if people will agree with me, but at face value I have lived in 2 distinct situations, and believe me, There is A HUGE cultural change between students living in the dorm room, and students living on campus. And I think that the UCLA administration needs to figure out a way to allow students, to inject some genuine excitement in to the lives of its other students, without bringing down the Hammer of Thor on everybody.
So student government
I think it might worth to have a separate thread on learning about the state of today’s student government at UCLA. Who are the key leaders, slates they are from. Who are getting in position to run for elections this upcoming year? How important it is for them to make raising awareness of Bruin athletics a big priority? If it’s not on their radar, perhaps they should think about getting it on their radar. Because if they develop a campaign platform that incorporates lot of the ideas coming out of here, this community might consider getting behind them.
Something to think about. Again, this has to come from students on BN IMO.
I agree - this has to be student driven
I can give all the sermons I want about how we used to do it, but that was then and this is now. It looks like things will have to be done in spite of the impediments put in the way by the administration (both school and Athletic Department.)
So now is the time to lead, someone. And remember, it looks like you have two powerful allies in Coach Neuheisel and Coach Howland. The BN can help, but this has to be an on-campus revolution.
You know nestor, I'm not sure how it was when you were a student
But in my experiences with Student government, It is nothing but a charade to make students feel like there is a voice on campus. Also, I have NO IDEA where all that money goes. My freshman year, we had a lot of big concerts, and social events on campus. But somewhere in between my freshman and senior year, the money was either overspent or completely mismanaged. Also, the so called government “leaders”, responsible for planning these events either don’t know enough about sports or care enough about the student experience to create a distinguished atmosphere of pride in our athletics. For example, Every year starting as a freshman, I heard about how the next round of students were going to bring a bar on campus. And we were apparently, “SO CLOSE” to having it done. Whatever that means… Student government officials are useless, most of them don’t care enough to actually inject passion in to creating a better atmosphere because all they really care about is how the election will look on their resume. What, I think needs to happen, is to not just throw money in to some organization to plan things, but to find passionate students, who can have access to resources to alert students about group events. I will disagree with this poster because the events I planned to go to the RoseBowl ALWAYS included the UCLA busses. And we used to meet on the first floor before we all would leave. For some reason, Individualization has taken over UCLA’s campus, and the most difficult task for me, When I was employed by ORL as a PA was to get the students to come out and try something new. It ‘s easy with the freshmen because they don’t know any better, and Some of them actually want to make friends. But Students need to be more active in not just WAITING AND EXPECTING things to happen for them, but to roll up their sleeves and actually try to get their friends to come out with them. And the whole bureaucracy of UCLA student government needs to be audited, and some of the positions redeveloped, because I know for a fact that money is being completely overspent on meaningless events and things.
By the way, I am also incredibly upset at the student body, because I have noticed that there are more and more self entitled students coming in who do NOT want to put in any of the work. And that really pisses me off, I could get in to some more examples, but really, students need to reflect on what they want to get out of their college experience, because what THEY put IN, is what THEY will get OUT.
Interesting
Well, I was fairly involved with student government and campus organizations during my time. At the time though we didn’t feel like we had to make sports awareness a part of USAC issues because we didn’t get apathy being a general problem at UCLA. Perhaps I was living within a bubble of friends who were all hyper spirited about our teams. But from my time I got the sense I was part of a community that really cared about the team.
Ed,Tyus et al. were loved on campus. We filled out the student section (especially for huge games) in Pauley.
I’ve got to think that if we get the right minded people in there they might not be able to bring radical change. However, they would be able to open a line of communication, make an effort to get students more plugged in, and use platform like this to educate others how to get more involved. It would be more about baby steps.
I am not thinking about making change happen within a period of one year. I am thinking about long term impact. Clearly this community has hit some kind of nerve (as evidenced in its growth from last 4+ years). Why not build on this and translate into something special via working to foster the same kind of community spirit based upon love for UCLA athletics offline (on campus)?
Absolutely!
It is completely about the mindset of the individuals seeking change. And I like where you are going with this communication thing. If they could create some sort of system that allowed students to connect together before sporting events. They could potentially create an exciting atmosphere on campus. In high school, it was pep rallys that got students fired up, but even then most students didn’t really care. But what would happen is at the pep rally’s people would sit together and everyone would form their own groups of friends, or preferably larger groups of people who would become more comfortable together.
Pretty soon, it didn’t matter what you were doing, but who you were doing it with. I think that
students would really appreciate the events more if they realized it isn’t just about the team their watching on the field. But the people around them, and the fact that they can connect and share their experiences together. Not to mention, the memories they are making. I guess community is established based on an underlying principal, and in this case UCLA athletics is the baseline.
I mean really it’s the alumni that really care about who wins and loses, and the students to some extent for bragging rights. But at the end of the day, or usually the next morning my friends and I would wake up and talk about the great time we had the day before, each of us going over our individual experience thus getting more excited about the next time we could share an event like that together. It’s funny that you mention your bubble of friends, because I can recall a few awesome and exciting games, but what really stands out are the people I shared those experiences with.
One thing to keep in mind
For students. There is nothing like connecting with alums over shared experiences wrt to UCLA athletics. It is an incredibly powerful networking tool and it opens a lot of doors in number of different professions.
So, yeah lot of great discussion here in recent days. I think it is very encouraging. We have to find a way to harness it and keep it going. I’d love to find out more about how we can make raising awareness of UCLA sports one of the biggest issues for students on campus.
Given the quality of posts, it’s clear there are more than a few of you out there who are passionate about. If you guys want to take the lead, organize in the coming weeks, we will be more than ready to help on this platform.
If someone wants to put together a concrete set of proposals, put together a plan to push for them, and then want to push it through available means of advocacy channels within the UCLA bureaucracy, then we’d be more than happy to encourage him or her on. And if on campus provisions allow it as such, I am sure we could also help with fundraising and consulting as well.
Student should keep this all in mind. Again, they have a great resource here in BN which allows them to get their ideas and push them infront of thousands of other alums/students/fans. This is one of the key places where the base of UCLA athletics congregate on line.
I wish I was still a student to physically get the ball rolling...
:(, but I would love to help some students create a plan of action, and to get the word out there more. I still live in L.A. and having just graduated, there was a lot of reflection about my time on that amazing campus. and I think I have some ideas on how to get some students working with the administration to beef up the level of excitement on game days… But having the influence of the BN community is really something I wish I had thought to use more when I was a student. Alumni are really the treasure that the Athletic Department and the Administration value, and its with their backing that anything can happen on campus! Anyway, I’d love to help any way I can!
Incoming Freshman Malcolm Jones
was named Gatorade National Player of the Year today. There’s a pretty good reason right there to fill up the Rose Bowl for the next 3 + years.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
If and when UCLA starts winning
the fans will come. It’s that simple. Part of the problem students aren’t as involved is that the Rose Bowl is too damn far away. Also UCLA has too many local students who spend the weekends at home. Furthermore, UCLA marketing, as has been pointed out, is beyond terrible. There existed 0 excitement in the dorms during gameday, 0 promotion by the school, etc…My friend went to Penn State and students regularly CAMPED OUT to get the best seats even when it rained or snowed in 30 degree weather. Our campus is an embarrassment when it comes to student participation in UCLA athletics and that won’t change until UCLA becomes a constantly competitive team.
So it's the Bandwagon Bruins?
I hope you’re not right, Sam. There has to be a cadre of hard core, win or lose fans. The shots I see of the Den don’t look like bandwagoners. Again, I suggest personal evangelism. Each hard core fan has to bring another person to a game (and not someone who would already go.) If each person brought one other person, wouldn’t that, wait …. That could double the student attendance. (You math guys double-check this, please.)
I hope I'm wrong too...
But the majority of all people, no matter the sport and no matter the school are nothing more than bandwagoners following the herd. If UCLA can replicate SUC’s success on the football field, all these conversations will become a distant memory. In terms of basketball, even when UCLA was winning, it was rarely exciting basketball. Just saying.
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