While attending the recent SMU Men’s Basketball home game verses Memphis, I noticed a strange phenomenon.
The students at the game, out in impressive numbers by SMU standards, seemed to be sporting a wide variety of the spring seasons’ hottest colors on their shirts: green, red, yellow, maroon, shades of blue, purple and more – all complimented by an array of Greek letters stitched on the front.
This seemed an interesting choice of attire for the big game against a conference rival that was advertised as a “white out.”
Instead of a white out, Moody Coliseum resembled a bowl of Fruit Loops, patches of white intermingled with blobs of color.
The colors were not the familiar red and blue of SMU, but rather those of the many fine sororities and fraternities on campus.
I do not wish to offer another stale rant about the lack of school spirit, low student game attendance and the rest; we are all familiar with those issues.
I only wish to ask: what is the value of wearing Greek letters and colors instead of school colors to a sporting event and sitting in segregated groups around the arena instead of as one student body?
Does it benefit the rest of the fans, the school, or the team?
Surely the alumni and community members in attendance are more concerned with the action on the court than seeing whose pledge class is most visible in the stands.
The school and team would certainty enjoy a sea of white, red, and blue filling the stadium more than the current rainbow of representation.
The atmosphere at the basketball games has been much improved, even electric at times this year. The crazy hats, animal costumes, American flags and oversized cutouts of Coach Brown and Ron Swanson are both hilarious and encouraging.
Many of these outpourings of spirit have come from members of the Greek community and other large campus groups to whom I say thank you.
Keep it up – but let us not forget the reason we attend colligate sporting events, to cheer on and support our team in every way possible.
A group that cannot put aside its own identity for even a brief two and half hour basketball game is likely to miss out on a growing part of the SMU experience – real school spirit. Yes, it exists, it’s growing and it’s here to stay.
A glimpse of that spirit was on display in the second half when a Memphis player was ejected from the game and the entire student body united in booing and screaming obscenities at the player as a proud, passionate group of college students. This is exactly what you would expect from a college basketball game taking place at a university on the move in both academics and athletics.
Things are slowly changing at SMU. This change will need to continue to improve as SMU moves to the Big East. Things are slowly changing at SMU.
