Don’t bother

This Saturday, yes this Saturday, is the long awaited first home game for the Western Michigan University football game, but if you plan on going to the game, you need to read this blog entry first.

Back in 2007, one of my friends, who attends Michigan State, came down for the WMU vs. Central Michigan game. Of course, this is a big game since it’s a big rivalry. But what struck me odd was when he told me, “you guys have the dumbest student section in college football” during the game.

I thought, “whatever, no we don’t” and I didn’t attend another home game that season and didn’t really think about it. But last season I really started to think about it and it occurred to me sometime in the middle of the 2008 season, “Wow, he’s right.”

Now, sometimes when the defense needs a big stop on 3rd down, the defense will wave their hands in the air to try to pump up the crowd and get some noise flowing to disrupt the offense. Sometime last year, the visiting team did it while we were on offense and people were yelling like the Broncos were on defense.

Hello. How dumb can you be? You’re supposed to be quite when Tim Hiller is about to take the snap. You don’t want to disrupt our offense by yelling and screaming and then we have people who are waving their keys for key play when WMU’s offense is on 3rd down.

Key play is for when the other team is on offense and is not used while the Broncos are on offense. The reason why people do that is intimidate the other team. And it’s not just one or two people that are doing this, it’s a lot.

I am so sick and tired of people who just show up and know nothing about football and don’t care about the game or make an attempt to follow it.

My buddy asked me what games were the best last season to go to. I told him it was probably the Illinois and CMU games because Illinois was played at Ford Field and CMU was in Mount Pleasant and only the true WMU football fans went, which made it very enjoyable.

I know a lot of people get drunk before games and just go to the games and yell and scream because they’re at a football game, and quite frankly, that is pathetic. If you get drunk and go to game, it’s really annoying to other people who are actually watching the game.

I know the goal of the student section is to be the best student section in the Mid-American Conference and make Waldo Stadium a tough place for opponents to play and if you’re drunk and screaming and random times, you’re not helping.

First of all, in my mind, showing up drunk to a game, not paying attention and being annoying is really disrespecting the football team.

They bust their tails off all week to win the game for the students and the university and they we just have student who show up to games and don’t care. That is minor league. No, that would be disrespecting the minor leagues, it’s more busch league.

And what also gets me is that a lot of the student section leaves at halftime, no matter what the score is. If the score is tied at half and you leave at half, that is busch too.

I also love how no matter what the team’s record is, the student section usually thins out the later the season goes on. This happened last year.

First game of the season against Northern Illinois, student section was full. By the time WMU played Toledo in October, student section was pretty much empty even WMU was 8-2 and coming that big win over Illinois.

So what’s my message? If you’re going to go the football game just to go and get drunk, don’t even go. Just don’t go. If you’re not paying attention to the game and just being annoying just stay home and save room for the real football fans.

This is your school and your team. Respect and cheer for them on to victory, if you don’t want to do that, stay home.

Mark Rudi, the Western Herald sports editor, is a senior majoring in journalism and can be reached at Herald-Sports@wmich.edu.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=8127

Posted by heraldstaff on Sep 16 2009. Filed under Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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