A lack of sports culture on campus has led to a decrease in the attendance and support of Cleveland’s basketball programs, diminishing the fan and athlete experience, supporters and athletes say.
A symbiotic relationship between fans and athletes enhances the experience of going to a game. Basketball players believe that fans can help their performance, and more fans makes going to the games that much more fun. Many fans haven’t had the same experience as they had in previous years, and as a result attendance has gone down.
An instance of fans contributing to the game could be shown through the girls’ games between Cleveland and the highly-ranked Grant team. Cleveland lost the first match on Jan. 9 47-32 on the road. The second match a month later on Feb. 7 the Warriors hosted Grant on youth night. All the Cleveland youth girls teams were invited and the atmosphere was electric. As a result, Cleveland had a much closer game, losing 50-44.
Senior captain Bijou O’Connor believes that the fans from youth night greatly contributed to their closer game. “Having the energy (at the game) really helped us,” she says. “We don’t have many fans at our games, so it was a nice experience.”
Junior Taylor O’Brien went to many games last year. O’Brien says he hasn’t gone to the basketball games this year because “I feel like we’re lacking school spirit that we had last year, and the attendance has been lowe,r so it influences people to not want to come.”
O’Brien believes that last year had good school spirit and a lot of attendance. O’Brien has also not gone to games because he has been busier than last year, and his friends haven’t attended games.
The same could be said of senior Rio Madone, who attended basketball games last year and this year. Madrone thinks the game atmosphere has changed as well.
“The games don’t get as much attention from social media, and there’s not as much talk around the school about the games,” Madrone says, adding, “The administration also isn’t allowing a fun experience for the fans. There’s not much freedom for chants. As soon as someone starts a chant, it gets shut down by administration.”
Junior Bowie Vaughan hasn’t attended any Cleveland basketball games this season. Instead, Vaughan supports Central Catholic basketball. Vaughan attends Central games because “Central (Catholic) is a top two team in the state, and I go there to support the family. I’ve also heard that Cleveland basketball games don’t have a good atmosphere, whereas the Central games are very rowdy.”
The consensus seems to be that the atmosphere at the games is the reason for the lack of support for the team. Next year, Cleveland basketball fans should come as often as possible to get the atmosphere back to the way it was before.
