"Only a Few in The Stands"

Anyone who has been to any college athletic event is part of something special. Those people that fill the stands pay to go watch great sports and have a fun experience. People fill the stands at those stadiums. Even if you go to any high school football or basketball game you would see the stands full of parents and student supporting their team. Now compare that to athletics here at LBCC and you would see a big difference.

If you go to any athletic event here at LBCC you would not find the stands full of people cheering and supporting the team. Instead you would see a small select group of fans that come and support the Roadrunner teams. That fact begs the question of why are there not a lot of people who come support LBCC athletics?

That question to me adds more questions to it. The first question is why would you not come to the games? If you are a student it is free to come, and even if you’re not it is pretty cheap to see some good competitive games and some good teams play night in and night out.

LBCC is a community college so you know they might not have the same athletic talent as most division one schools, but the athletes here at LBCC are still some of the best from around the area and are determined to get better. A lot of the students here come from smaller schools that had successful high school programs.

This past season the LBCC women’s volleyball team finished in second place in the South Division and made it into the NWAACC tournament, which is a great accomplishment. Right now the men’s basketball team is in fifth place with a 6-6 record in the South Division, but has been competitive in almost every game so far this season.

As I sat in the stands for the men’s basketball game last weekend it got me thinking about what the players felt about all this. The crowd at games can play a key role in the game. If your team is up and the crowd is making lots of noise it could be hard for the other team to make shots, or if your team is on a comeback they need the support to help them fight back into the game. After I thought about it I knew that it must be hard to play every night in front of only a couple hundred fans and try to give it your all, but that’s what all the teams do at LBCC and most are very competitive.

"So many things to pull us away from sport events these days, makes me wonder if people really watch the sporting events or is more just about the socializing," said Head Volleyball coach Jayme Frazier.

Jayme made a good point there. At Lebanon High School, the boys basketball team has lost 45 games in a row but the gym is always full of students and parents. That makes me wonder if the socializing aspect of the game is more fun to the students than the actual game is. Maybe we need to make the games more social but where you are able to watch and talk about the games too.

It is not that no one shows up, but there are not as many as there could be. Most of the people who show up are a few students and the parents of the athlete and maybe a couple friends too. I wonder if people don’t go to games because they don’t know when they are. LBCC athletics is not advertised much around here and it is not like the games are on the radio, so people might find it hard to find out when the games are.

Perhaps if LBCC maybe put a ad somewhere to come support the teams, or maybe if we could broadcast the games over the Internet or radio to gain more interest, then more people might come. Until that happens I must salute all the fans that do take time to come and support teams here at LBCC. They support all the teams and get to see some great athletics in the process.




Want to know more about the different teams here at LBCC?


Athletic Sites:

Volleyball

Men's Basketball

Women's Basketball

Baseball


Don't know when the next game is?

Men's schedule and women's schedule