Many factors for lack of avid fan support

The Oberlin basketball crowd is quiet and the gym has more seats showing than fans. Only about 100 fans showed up for the final men's home game on Wednesday Feb. 19 against Allegheny College.

Several factors weigh against Oberlin Basketball's fan support. The team does not get the wins, and winning teams get crowds.

The Chicago Bulls didn't have sell outs while the team was losing, but now they are sold-out well into the next millennium. Only the top four or so teams in the NCAC are able to draw big crowds, such as Wittenberg College, College of Wooster and Kenyon College, where athletics are emphasized more.

The Oberlin's men and women's basketball teams both finished the season by making the conference playoffs as the eighth seeds. The men had finished in the cellar for the last five years and the women six.

Both basketball coaches, and Athletic Director Don Hunsinger, said that there is no reason not to be pleased with the crowd turnout for Oberlin's basketball teams. The men's team averaged roughly 250 fans per home game, while the women's team averaged about 150 fans. There have been very few fans at away games, while other school's fans when visiting Oberlin sometimes equal the amount of fans Oberlin has while playing at home.

"Students, faculty and community are going to come [to games] to see a team winning," women's coach Ann Gilbert said.

Junior Jeremy Sullivan is one of the few to follow a team on the road. He drove over five hours to cheer for Oberlin in what was arguably their most important game of the year at Earlham College. "Well, this was partly because I have a friend at Earlham and I also have a friend on the [Oberlin] team," Sullivan said. Besides these reasons, though, Sullivan is still very supportive of the basketball program.

"I like basketball and if I had gone to a bigger school I would have been really into [the program]," he said. "I try to get as much into the Division III thing as much as I can."

Other factors weigh against active fan support. Students have so many other activities to choose from. Also, "None of the players on the men's basketball team are from Ohio," Men's Coach Miguel Curl said. "Local players' family and friends can come to the games, but Oberlin has no local players." Lastly, over half of the men's and women's games are played with a depleted fan base over Winter Term. This can work both ways, however, as often those here for Winter Term might be more inclined to go to games as they have less to do.

Senior Mahidi Newman felt the fan support this year was a significant improvement over previous years. He felt that on campus there was more support and interest in the basketball program. "There was a general, overall feeling that we were better," Newman said.

Newman felt that the coaching staff played a large role in the team's improved image.

"The more encouragement you have, the more confidence you have in yourself," Newman said.

One aspect of encouragement is the heckling inflicted upon Yeomen and Yeowomen opponents from some of Oberlin's more creative tongues. Junior Josh Ellison recalled fondly the days when OC'96 students labeled a short, leprechaun-tattooed opponent "lucky charms" and taunted him mercilessly through the whole game.

Heckling isn't completely dead, though, as Sullivan does his best to help out the team any way he can. "At Earlham there was this one player who kept yelling at me to move behind the Oberlin bench," Sullivan said. "I guess I wasn't supposed to be where I was, but we were up 20 points so I didn't care. Also, last year some kid's mom was yelling at me from across the court."

Even with these improvements, Oberlin basketball doesn't get the fan turnout of any decent high school basketball program. Going to a basketball game is definitely not the "only" thing to do on any night of the week at Oberlin like it might be at such schools as Georgetown University, or Duke University.

This distinction probably explains why several first-years feel there is a lack of fan support. "[The players] don't have any encouragement," persistent fan and first-year Camille Fair said.

Fan support is helpful, but according to Ellison, "Of all the factors that effect our play, the amount of fans and their vocalness isn't that important. No one wants to go out and see their team lose and that's exactly what we do. I feel guilty when our fans come out game after game and we keep on losing."

Sullivan disagreed, saying, "There have been a few games with a lot of fans there. Players respond when there are a lot of fans. It's a shame more fans don't go to games."