Western Michigan basketball needs Midnight Madness

By Eric Woodyard
Western Herald

When the clock strikes midnight in mid‑October, most colleges and Division I universities are celebrating its basketball team’s Midnight Madness.

This marks the beginning of a new season, erasing all of the mistakes and failures from the previous season while bringing excitement to its new crop of fans.

Not only does this mark a new season, it also gives freshman the opportunity to get accustomed to playing in front of the bright lights of the collegiate level in order to erase all of the early jitters.

This event is generally free and includes free food, a dunk contest, a three‑point shootout and a scrimmage in the end to give fans a glimpse of all the hard work that the players have put in during the off‑season.

More than one third of all Division I schools celebrate this event…but who doesn’t? (Drum roll please?) And the survey says…Western Michigan University!

Why don’t we have this event? This should and could become a traditional event at this university in order to bring more excitement into WMU’s basketball program. And the university wonders why more fans don’t show up throughout the season. It’s the small things like these traditional events that connects fans to their teams and brings them to games.

We could be the best team in the nation (which is highly unlikely, by the way) and still not draw as many fans as some of the less‑talented teams because we may not have established a connection with them in order to win their support. On Friday, Oct. 16, teams like Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and even Eastern Michigan University all celebrated their Midnight Madness.

You mean to tell me that EMU can celebrate an event like this in Ypsilanti and we can’t duplicate this in Kalamazoo?

I don’t believe there is any reason that we can’t and shouldn’t embrace this tradition. No disrespect to EMU or the city of Ypsilanti, but I just felt that WMU is just as capable if we are both Mid‑American Conference schools.

If the university feels as if money is a problem, then I don’t agree with that in any way, shape or form. What program wouldn’t want to spend a little extra money in exchange for more fans? They have to become more conscious of how highly successful college programs are running their organizations. Most of them always have more interaction with their fans starting with the Midnight Madness.

Although I do give them credit for running a successful football organization, I just think the basketball team could be equally good if not better.

WMU almost always plays its rival football game against Central Michigan University around the time of Midnight Madness. But in the end, the basketball team is paying for it. So just spend a little extra money and let’s get Midnight Madness up and running on WMU’s campus. I’m pretty sure the results will be satisfying.

Eric Woodyard, a Western Herald sports writer, is a junior majoring in journalism and can be reached at eric.j.woodyard@wmich.edu.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=10518

Posted by heraldstaff on Oct 22 2009. Filed under Sports. 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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