SMU’s spam of emails are nothing new. You can always expect your inbox to have an overflow of notifications informing you about various events throughout the school year.
But one noticeable email in all capital letters always pops up on my inbox every Thursday night like clockwork.
The subject title: “WEAR RED ON FRIDAYS.”
The expected result SMU thinks will come about from this is somehow instilling an excessive amount of school spirit through a few lines of motivational text.
(Note they also highlight it in red too!)
So, why in God’s name has every student refused to wear red on Fridays?
What is so cliché or taboo that people have made more of an effort to avoid wearing this color at the start of the weekend rather than proudly bleeding their school colors?
It’s because there is not enough school spirit for students to be convinced to put on their red spirit jerseys, t-shirts, cardigans or flannel.
To most, it’s not worth the effort.
Our school is not a sports-driven school (with the recent exception of Men’s Basketball).
Most SMU students do not care enough to go support their team and watch games. The only reason people did it this year was because of the Varsity app for the Mob.
While the obvious part of this dilemma is that students do not feel spirited enough to voluntarily wear their school colors other than during boulevards, SMU should invest in a more efficient plan of action to promote school spirit in its students.
We are in college, a good one at that. All our sports are Division 1, and a majority of sport teams here do not receive the credit nor support they deserve.
Instead of hounding us to wear red when we don’t care to, why not try and spread real school spirit?
Notify us about games! And I don’t mean through the standard email as we’ve received.
Those tend to get lost in the vast sea of SMU spam.
Promote each team on the TVs in Umph and Arnold. Create posters and make more banners for more than just the soccer and volleyball teams.
Make it known that the student athletes who are putting in a ridiculous amount of time and commitment into their sport are noticed. In time people will notice, too.
More people will come to games voluntary. People will cheer with full force. Some may even wear red. It’s with constant promotion, notification and sometimes annoyance that captures students’ attention about school events.
We are busy people. We’re trying to survive passing all our classes on top of our commitments to Greek life, hobbies, friends and relationships.
If there isn’t enough attention brought to a topic enough to incite change, then none will happen. But with fervent showcasing and the spread of noteworthy information SMU can bring back school spirit. And this active student body will create a regenerated and better SMU.
