There are few things more stressful than trying to find a parking spot right before you need to be in Meadows to warm up for your orchestra concert. I realized this last Wednesday, when I was in the passenger side of a car that had a driver trying to do just that.
“Oh my god,” he said as he circled around again. “This is so stupid.”
We pulled up to the side of Meadows that usually has parking for Meadows events, such as large orchestra concerts. We hadn’t even gotten close to the entrance when the guy standing by the guardrail started shaking his head.
My friend rolled down the window. “I can’t park here even if I’m performing?” he asked.
“Nope,” the guy said. “Basketball game only.”
We ended up having to park down by Highland Park Middle School sort of near the campus and walk (but mostly run) down the street and back to Meadows.
I get that sports are big. I understand. Sports are fun. It’s great to go be a part of a large crowd and support a team that you feel passionately about playing a sport that you enjoy watching. It’s exciting. The athletes work hard, and they definitely deserve all the recognition and attendance their events get.
But something I’ve learned from being a part of the arts school is that all of these students work incredibly hard too. People in music have pieces to learn, practicing to do, and an incredible amount of rehearsals to attend before they put on a concert. Theatre students have lines to memorize, stage directions to figure out and a lot of rehearsals as well. And do you even know what dance students go through? Like athletes, arts students work hard.
SMU’s support of our students shouldn’t just be limited to sporting events. While it’s great that we support them as much as we do, imagine if we gave something even close to that support to all of the other events that happen on campus. We get emails all the time about basketball and football. I get multiple emails about one single sporting event. I only ever see emails about Meadows events maybe once a week. And then when those events do happen, if they just so happen to coincide with a game, good luck finding a place to park and get in.
We should be as proud of our arts students as we are of our athletics students. We should support our arts students like we support our athletics students. And, at the very least, arts students and the people going to see them should have somewhere to park too.
I’ve seen some amazing events in Meadows that still had empty seats that should have been filled. Even if you’ve never been to a Meadows event before, there’s really nothing stopping you. If you’re looking for something to do, why not marvel at some of the talent that our school has and be proud of that?
