National Media Including ESPN Take Note of #SFatPauley

None of the UCLA beat reporters from the Los Angeles Times and the LA Daily News bothered to mention the online push that helped our students to get their sideline seats back at Pauley. The Orange County Register remains quiet about it. They didn't even mention the news of Dan Guerrero reversing his decision to shut out students. While the local outlets remained quiet, the national ones took note.

Give ESPN guys some credit. They have been on. Peter Yoon from ESPNLA blogged yesterday:

The original plan for student seating was to have all students sit behind the west basket in an attempt to unify the student section and make it more boisterous. But an online protest spearheaded by fan blog Bruins Nation contended that removing the students from the sideline would deprive students of a prized UCLA experience as well as diminish UCLA's home court advantage.

The protest drew enough interest to have the issue added to the student elections ballot and 69% of voters said they wanted to keep the sideline seats, 8% said they wanted a unified student section and 23% had no preference. The vote had no policy-making power as it was an advisory action only, but athletic director Dan Guerrero said he would listen to the results and stuck to his word.

More ... after the jump.

Yoon's colleague Diamond Leung - a former sports editor at Daily Bruin who writes on ESPN's College Basketball Nation Blog - took note of the online effort:

In March, the UCLA athletic department announced that when the new Pauley Pavilion opened for the 2011-12 season, the student section would be moved behind one of the baskets and stretch all the way to the top of the arena in order to increase home-court advantage.

"The visiting teams will shoot free throws into this basket in the second half," the email to the students read. "Good luck."

Fans weren't buying that theory and proceeded to protest the students being moved away from the sideline of the arena, with one online petition getting more than 1,000 signatures and even at least one player getting involved in the discussion.

Today, the athletic department has reversed course and decided the students will keep their sideline floor seating.

Rush the Court, one of the most widely read independent college basketball blog, also highlighted the efforts of UCLA students to save their sideline seats this morning.

Let's give credit to all of these guys for covering the story unlike their counterparts from Los Angeles.