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Fellow Ponyfans, is this true?

http://www.smudailycampus.com/vnews/dis ... 45bbb4d6ea


OPINION


Chip Hiemenz
Don't fumble, go to the game
OP/ED


By Chip Hiemenz, Liz Healy and Gabe Travers
Student body president, student body vice president and student body secretary
November 12, 2004


We’d like to first congratulate the Mustang football team on their victory last weekend and say how great it was to see many of you taking advantage of the new post-game procedures. For those on the field after the game, it was a truly unique and amazing experience to sing “Varsity” with fellow students celebrating a win.

As many of you know, this Saturday marks the final home football game of the 2004 season, and this time there’s a lot more at stake than adding another exciting “W” to our record. In order to maintain NCAA Division I-A status, SMU must have at least 15,000 in attendance at each game according to new requirements set in place this fall. (To clarify: this is tickets torn at the gate, not tickets sold.)

By being a Division I-A school, Mustang athletics receives benefits not afforded to other institutions. The advantages with regards to recruitment, retention, scholarship and overall standing are innumerable. In short: Division I-A status is not something the university can lose.

Luckily, this is one situation upon which the outcome rests entirely upon you: the students of SMU. So do Peruna a favor and head to the game tomorrow.

We’re sure many of you have heard about the alternative to Boulevard tailgating this weekend, which was put together by a group of students dedicated to filling the student section at tomorrow’s game. For those who decide to attend the event, we can’t wait to see you at the game.

For those of you who will be participating in traditional Boulevard tailgating, we also can’t wait to see your face in the stadium and thank you for being patient with the evolving policies of The Boulevard. Due to the diligence of state government agencies, SMU has been forced this year to take actions to prevent us from losing one of the community’s favorite fall events.

But please realize, though we cannot speak on behalf of the university, we are confident that there are many individuals working to improve the experience for everyone and make The Boulevard a fun, safe place to be before home games.

Whatever it is you decide to do tomorrow, all that we ask of you is this: Step up to the challenge of being a member of the SMU community and attend the football game vs. Nevada at 5 p.m. in Ford Stadium.

We hope you all stay through the game and participate in many of the exciting opportunities (including Senior Day and post-game festivities), but please take the effort to at least attend in the first place. You may not realize it, but SMU students are the center of that stadium’s spirited and lively atmosphere. The team, cheerleaders, dancers and band all need your support to make tomorrow the third win of the season.

So tomorrow as the clock approaches 5 p.m., take a moment to remind yourself and all your friends that you have the power to help the university maintain Division I-A status and cheer the Mustangs on to victory. SMU’s future is in your hands.



Chip Hiemenz is the student body president. Liz Healy is the student body vice president. Gabe Travers is the student body secretary. They may be reached at [email protected]

It is true, but the wording is off a bit. We must maintain an average attendance of 15,000 tickets torn per game (from Jim Copeland). That requirement has already been met this year. We will be in D-1 next year. Stop worrying, go to the game and invite your friends.

As Jack Nickolson said in a Few Good Men, "You want the truth? You can't stand the truth." The truth is that even if you try to scare the students into attending the game with some misinfomration about Div. 1-A attendance requirements, it still doesn't get them into the stands.

P.S. I sure need a spell check function on this message board to correct my poor typing.

stang_fan wrote:That requirement has already been met this year. We will be in D-1 next year.

How do you know this? What is our "actual attendance" average for the season, since you seem to be in the know.

With all the free tickets floating around our actual attenence will be MUCH MUCH lower than some of you think once the NCAA audits our books. We survive only because of Texas Tech.

It doesn't matter if they pay, just that they went through the turnstiles. Heck a person hitting the can to relieve themselves if they had any kind of ticket gets counted toward that average. TT 30,000 SJS 18,000 LT 13,000 TU 12000. At this point we have about 73,000 attendance. With those figures we need about 2,000. After audit, figure you lose 5,000. We'd need 7,000 this weekend at worst. Our D-1-AA status for this year is safe. Next year we should be okay as well with TCU and Baylor at home.

jtstang wrote:

stang_fan wrote:That requirement has already been met this year. We will be in D-1 next year.

How do you know this? What is our "actual attendance" average for the season, since you seem to be in the know.

I can tell you we will be D-1 next year, because even if we had not averaged 15k this year, the NCAA would only hand down a warning.

You know, I for one am glad to see efforts on many fronts to increase attendance. The canned food thing, the UMYF thing, the article & advo from Mustang Insider, and the Campus article. Why is it that with each effort to help out the program, we hear b*tching & moaning? It's almost as if there are those who would prefer apathy. Yes, attendance as it stands makes it appear as though apathy is rampant...but at least there are these entities doing something about it (or attempting to).

On a lighter note, is Liz Healy related to Rogers?

Smoo Power wrote:I can tell you we will be D-1 next year, because even if we had not averaged 15k this year, the NCAA would only hand down a warning.

That is true. I did not mean to question the fact that we will be in Div 1 next season, just the statement that we had met the attendance requirement.

Although we would receive more than ust a "warning"--there is a type of probation involved where we would lose eligibility for post-season play (like that matters), and some other sanctions, which PK looked up but I can't recall now. It's all in the by-laws at ncaa.org if you're interested.

I applaud the student body officers for taking such an active role in supporting SMU athletics.

And we are not in danger of falling below the 15k mark this year. There is some method behind the scheduling of schools like Tech, Ok St, etc.

According to fans who hate Jim Copeland, it is idiotic to schedule teams like TT, OSU, and Baylor at home. Right now we need to rent their fans. Down the road if we start winning, we won't need to rent fans anymore and I do think a more regional conference will help bring fans in for the long term. After we start playing UH again, we'll start to remember the 96 point game, and they'll remember the payback game. The more years we play Tulane, Tulsa and UTEP the better the rivalry will get. Rice has played us for about 90 years, so they will stay our official conference rival while the Froggies retain the historical rival status. They'll need us down the road when their MWC experiment blows up and they get hot pants for another move. Four conferences in less than 10 years, that's getting to Liz Taylor territory (five conferences if you count WAC-1 and WAC-2).

Jtstang,

My information was regurgetated from a Jim Copeland response to an e-mail I sent him. I don't know any more than anyone else. In fact I'm not sure I can even trust Copeland, but I will. I have no reason to dislike the guy. I think the main reason people dislike the guy is because we have had such a bad football program. He seems to genuinely care for the program. We shouldn't be so [deleted] him.

Okay. thanks.