Moody can Rock

[Junior]

Water Pony, you're right. The fact that LB was willing to reach out and personally visit students says a lot. He gets it. And I remember Bennett doing the same.

but didn't Doh do that a few times as well?

Yes he did and did a terrific job of it. He actually made it a point to visit every fraternity on campus. Nothing wrong with Coach Doherty's work ethic. Same for Coach Brown. Good job Coach Brown!

That's what I thought. Need to give him credit where it's due.

[Oliver]

Doherty did a great job of trying to keep the students involved, he even brought the SAE pledges back into the locker room after a big win two years ago. I also remember him visiting the SAE house.

I'm only bummed that Larry's first year as a coach is my first year as an alum, But a few of us in the SAE house did our very best every year to encourage the pledges to always be there and always be loud, and our last two coaches have recognized our efforts.

All frats should do the same.

[PonyPlayer4]

Doh came and "coached" one of our intramural bball games. All the coaches have made attempts to reach out. For the students it's about breaking through the perception that SMU sucks at sports... which unfortunately most of the student body has.

[Smerkins]

I'm the resident college basketball junkie in my chapter and everyone keeps asking me are we going to make the tournament?

I tell them, there was never a chance of that happening this year, because Brown came in too late to recruit for this class.

Before I can even fully explain my point, they lose interest.

[Water Pony]

Doherty did a great job of trying to keep the students involved, he even brought the SAE pledges back into the locker room after a big win two years ago. I also remember him visiting the SAE house.

I'm only bummed that Larry's first year as a coach is my first year as an alum, But a few of us in the SAE house did our very best every year to encourage the pledges to always be there and always be loud, and our last two coaches have recognized our efforts.

All frats should do the same.

Question for Oliver and all current and recent grads:

My son graduated in '05 (and an SAE) and I was struck by so many students (especially the fraternities), who stayed on the Boulevard or the Chapter Houses during all or part of the FB games at Ford. It frustrated me because when I attended (in the Sixites), our turnouts at the Cotton Bowl were generally quite good. It was expected that everyone attend. For example, the swimminers and divers always got a block too.

I have heard that today's students prefer watching games on TV watching, while some students maintian allegiance to other schools, e.g. state schools. How do we break this pattern and get the student body into Ford and Moody in large numbers, on-time throughout the game? No smack. How, do we accelerate these actions beyond having a better product on the field/court?

[FriscoChuck]

I have heard that today's students prefer watching games on TV watching,

I work for Cisco and it is well researched that younger folks prefer TV and social media as part of game day enjoyment. It is important that SMU gets better cell or wifi connection in ford and Moody. If AT&T and Verizon won't improve it than SMU needs to have an open Wifi in stadiums.

Obviously, Mustangs need to win as #1 goal. So far I haven't seen a lot of that against teams that matter.

[lwjr]

It does not help that the video game generation has an attention span of a Gnat. I don't say that to be mean

[Water Pony]

My question is less related to the media preferences or attention deficit by youth,which are presumably universal. In many schools, you can name them, the students are involved, do attend and understand their role in being part of their team's game day. Our need is to reconnect our student body with our teams. How?

[lwjr]

As someone mentioned earlier, one of the problems is out of state students coming in and holding allegiance to theiir state schools teams of choice. I am sure a lot of that is due to SMU's poor football and basketball teams over the years but I witnessed the same thing when I was at SMU in the early 80's. I am not refering to all of the students but it does seems like it was a rather high number of students.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

As someone mentioned earlier, one of the problems is out of state students coming in and holding allegiance to theiir state schools teams of choice. I am sure a lot of that is due to SMU's poor football and basketball teams over the years but I witnessed the same thing when I was at SMU in the early 80's. I am not refering to all of the students but it does seems like it was a rather high number of students.

Of course out of state students have always held some sort of allegiance to a college closer to their home, but at least when I was in school they still wore SMU stuff and went to the games and cheered for SMU.

Now the one thing that may be a bit different now is allegiance to other schools in Texas for some Texas kids - which never happened in the days of the SWC.

Any SMU student who cheers or wears stuff from another Texas school should be expelled.

[Water Pony]

As someone mentioned earlier, one of the problems is out of state students coming in and holding allegiance to theiir state schools teams of choice. I am sure a lot of that is due to SMU's poor football and basketball teams over the years but I witnessed the same thing when I was at SMU in the early 80's. I am not refering to all of the students but it does seems like it was a rather high number of students.

Of course out of state students have always held some sort of allegiance to a college closer to their home, but at least when I was in school they still wore SMU stuff and went to the games and cheered for SMU.

Now the one thing that may be a bit different now is allegiance to other schools in Texas for some Texas kids - which never happened in the days of the SWC.

Any SMU student who cheers or wears stuff from another Texas school should be expelled.

I tend to agree with you, DF. It is not the out of state schools that worry me. We are their only DFW, Texas, SW and national university. We need and want passion. Pony Up!

[Treadway21]

From Rick Hart about student seat in the lower level:
@AD_RickHart: Plan is 3 sides. “@sportzjunkman: @mickmcg21 @AD_RickHart Very true, I hope new arena will have plenty of lower bowl student seating.”

[couch 'em]

As someone mentioned earlier, one of the problems is out of state students coming in and holding allegiance to theiir state schools teams of choice. I am sure a lot of that is due to SMU's poor football and basketball teams over the years but I witnessed the same thing when I was at SMU in the early 80's. I am not refering to all of the students but it does seems like it was a rather high number of students.

Of course out of state students have always held some sort of allegiance to a college closer to their home, but at least when I was in school they still wore SMU stuff and went to the games and cheered for SMU.

Now the one thing that may be a bit different now is allegiance to other schools in Texas for some Texas kids - which never happened in the days of the SWC.

Any SMU student who cheers or wears stuff from another Texas school should be expelled.

I tend to agree with you, DF. It is not the out of state schools that worry me. We are their only DFW, Texas, SW and national university. We need and want passion. Pony Up!

We have to play top level football. To the average person we might as well be Div 1-AA. Thus we get treated as such. Being a UT fan and an SMU fan is not a conflict to students.

[smusportspage]

We are not talking about the average person. We are talking SMU students! At the very least, SMU should rank número uno and THEN any other school. Holey smokes people. This is just basic stuff.

[1983 Cotton Bowl]

I'm not breaking new ground with this insight. . .but there is also the fact that SMU football and hoops have not seized on their opportunities to get the students' attention for decades. Case in point. . .we beat TCU in Fort Worth in 2011. Hey, that was great. But what would have REALLY been great is if we had beaten TCU at Ford in 2010 when we had a packed house, including a large student turnout. The students showed. . .and SMU lost. That has been the experience time and time again for SMU students when they give the Ponies a chance. The Mike Dement teams were on the cusp a few times and there were some big crowds at Moody. But invariably they lost the big games at home that could have captured student interest. The few big wins that I can point to over the past couple of decades (Arkansas in football 1997, Purdue in hoops, etc.) all happened away from campus and out of the student's eyes.

You want students to become more interested. . .How about beating Baylor and/or Tech at Ford next year. For hoops, how about some marquis wins against BE competition AT MOODY next year. Nothing gets people on board more than winning. . .and there is nothing like winning a big one at home.