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By: ASHLEY SCOBY
As a UK student and sports fan, one of my favorite experiences from my freshman year in Lexington was the time I spent in the student sections of UK sporting events. Basketball, football, volleyball – each student section has its own atmosphere completely separate from the rest of the crowd. It’s an experience like no other, and one of the best parts about going to a Division-I (and SEC) school.
Some students, however, don’t revere the experience as much as I, and many of my classmates, do. Larry tipped me off to this comment on a Scout message board a couple weeks ago:
“I heard UK wanted to start some classes in explosives and were going to use the student section during football games for testing b/c that way they'd be sure no one would be in the immediate vicinity. I'm not sure we could get students to UK games with free beer. Not just this year, pretty much every year. Not just football either. Wait till we see how empty it is with the bball home games too. They're always half empty in the upper deck for no-name teams, and football is worse.”
And this person makes a fair point – on a personal level, I was pretty disappointed with the student section at football games last year. Admittedly, the Cats weren’t a bowl-caliber team last year, and frustration was running high. But I’m one of those people that sticks it out no matter the weather, no matter the score, until there are triple 0’s on the game clock. That doesn’t make me a better fan; it just makes me a different one.
What is the motivation to be in the student section for a UK football game? What’s the motivation to skip out on the stadium experience and just watch on a big screen?
Sometimes it’s the team on the field that affects someone’s decision to go to Commonwealth. Wes Henderson, a UK senior who has traditionally been a regular in the student section of various UK sporting events, said that he hasn’t bought season tickets for UK football this year.
“I love my school, but I’m tired of the product,” he said. “We are back to the same team we were before Rich Brooks got here…Just because I don’t like wasting my day at the stadium doesn’t mean I don’t support them. I have better stuff to be doing. I’ll probably have the game on for the games I don’t attend.”
Henderson makes a fair point: going to an SEC football game is quite the undertaking for your Saturday, especially if you have student tickets. You’ve got the tailgating portion of the day obviously, and you have to get to the student section a good hour or two before kickoff so that you have a good spot in the bleachers (since the student section is now general admission). Then there’s the actual game, which goes on for hours. By the time you blink, your whole Saturday is consumed with football. It’s hard for some students, such as Henderson who is pre-med, to commit an entire day to UK football, especially when they are not as successful as they have been in recent years.
For others, skipping out on being at UK football games doesn’t have anything to do with how good or bad Kentucky is. Kendall Huddleston, a sophomore at UK, says that her disappointment with the student section at football games has more to do with the kinds of fans that are there.
“I just don’t think the people who come to the football games are there to actually watch the game,” she said. “Most of the people there are ‘drunk sorority girls’ and guys trying to hit on them. It’s more about tailgating to most people than the actual game.”
Another fair point, and one that I can especially sympathize with. There’s nothing worse than trying to watch a football game while there is a girl behind you vomiting and being carried out of the stadium because she’s so intoxicated (true story). College kids will be college kids, and that is their own personal choice. But their antics don’t make the student section any more enjoyable for those trying to watch and analyze the game.
Regardless of some of the negatives of cheering from the student section (as there inevitably will be in any section of any stadium in the country), it’s an experience that many wouldn’t trade for anything.
“Just being in a stadium with thousands of people with the same thoughts and purpose is just exciting,” said Kaci Mercer, a sophomore at UK, about going to basketball and football games at UK. “I mainly go for the experience. It's something that could only happen once in a lifetime for some people... but as a student we have the opportunity to do almost every game. Why not take advantage of it?”
This football season will be a true test for UK students: With negativity swirling around the program, and with the predictions of a hard season ahead, will they show up at GA3, collect their free shakers and stay until the final seconds tick off the clock? It’s hard to say.
I know that I would be there for every second of every single game, as I was last year, if it weren’t for my being credentialed at Commonwealth this year. I just hope my classmates will feel the same way, regardless of how successful the season will be. And even if they don’t, it’s clear that the team’s success (or lack thereof) is not the only factor keeping some students out of the student section.
Let’s not start testing explosives there just yet.
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