Student attendance at SMU sporting events is pitiful. There are many reasons why this might be the case: lack of school spirit, lack of available parking for off campus students or maybe the football team just isn’t good enough to get people interested.
It could be any of these; it could be all of these. I don’t know. But the one thing I am sure of is that a lack of alcohol at Ford Stadium is not why people don’t show up to games.
That isn’t to say that adding alcohol to Ford Stadium wouldn’t increase attendance — it probably would. But there are better solutions, solutions that address the real issues behind the sparse attendance of football games, and bribing students with promises of cheap beer is not one such solution.
First, most students aren’t of legal drinking age yet. Only seniors and about half of juniors would be able to partake legally. This wouldn’t solve the problem for first-years and sophomores, who are arguably the students who most need to be attracted to the games. Instilling a sense of school spirit in those newer students is what’s going to make them want to continue attending games and getting excited about games for years to come.
Alcohol doesn’t create school spirit, nor is it an adequate substitute for
school spirit.
It is certainly naive of me to assume that only juniors and seniors would imbibe. Alcohol would probably attract plenty of first years and sophomores as well. But if there is one thing this school doesn’t need, it’s more underage drinking.
From my personal experience in the seats of Ford Stadium, the amount of alcohol available on the Boulevard is clearly plenty. SMU students who prefer to watch our football team while drunk aren’t having any trouble doing that.
If the problem is that the football team isn’t good enough to get people to want to show up to the games, alcohol might appear an adequate solution. Alcohol is well known for its ability to make substandard things easier to consume. Whether that be Taco Bell, a 2/10 or a pitcher of Shiner Bock. If something isn’t good enough for sober consumption, it probably is good enough for drunk consumption. That being said, I’m not comfortable lumping in SMU’s football program with the likes of PBR and Whataburger.
Alcohol might make a bad team more watchable, but what would it say about SMU to say that our football team is only watchable after a few drinks? Are we as a community OK with that? We shouldn’t be.
What alcohol does is mask problems. Alcohol feels like a solution to depression, to bad breakups and to obnoxious relatives at family gatherings. But it doesn’t solve
those problems.
The same is true here. Alcohol may help treat the symptoms, but it doesn’t cure the systemic problems causing those symptoms.
Self-medicating with beer won’t cure us of poor-attendance-itis. We need real solutions.
We need to build a stronger sense of community, we need to find a way to increase pride in our sports program and we need to get some school spirit. I don’t have any solutions to offer right now. That’s going to take some time, effort and serious thought. Bribing students with alcohol is not the answer we’re looking for. We need to keep looking.
Ultimately, saying that alcohol is the only way to get students to show up to a football game is to admit defeat. To admit that SMU has no school spirit and to admit that our football team isn’t very good is to admit that we’ve given up trying to create a sense of community.
I’m not ready to admit that. And I don’t think anyone else on campus should be either.
Keene is a senior majoring in political science, ecomomics and public policy.
