The number of Criterion articles asking Colorado Mesa University students to attend sporting events of their school teams could create their own tower.
Earlier this year, I wrote about supporting the football team when their season began. Our editor in chief also pleaded for students to show up to baseball’s home opener and watch the number four team in the nation play. Currently, CMU has eight athletic programs nationally ranked in the top 25 in the nation.
However, even with all the success, the school doesn’t fill the stands on a consistent basis. Maybe it is a lack of school spirit, but the other possibility is playing devil’s advocate and asking if CMU sports are even “must see?”
Honestly, CMU sports aren’t.
The amount of must-see sports in the world itself is scarce, let alone in Division II athletic programs. It has nothing to do with the quality of the teams. Softball is number three in the nation and baseball is CMU’s perennial powerhouse, but even then those sports on a national level aren’t ones that force audiences to stop what they are doing to watch them even at the top level. How can we expect CMU baseball to be must-see television if not even every New York Yankee game is prime television?
What CMU does have, however, are unique sporting events that are must-see. Notice the difference. One is asking if a sport needs to be consistently seen by the masses as a priority. The other is discussing how on one day, the atmosphere surrounding an event needs to be witnessed by every student at a school.
Some of these events are paramount matches. Playoff games or NCAA Tournament matches are a unique event for students to witness in Grand Junction. Those don’t even occur necessarily every year, so in terms of RMAC Playoff or even better, national playoffs, those games are important to witness as it is your school and peers competing at the highest level in a do-or-die situation that creates a tense atmosphere.
The other must-see events are unique events that only happen once or twice a year. Watching the CMU Football team every week may not be of interest to the masses, but the homecoming game is. So is the fireworks game by baseball and the Pink the Rink event put on by the hockey team. These events are more life moments than they are moments about the team and their performance on the field.
For students, these events are ones that students feel they need to be a part of to create lasting memories in their college experience. Yes, they watch the game, but it has an incentive with it. Homecoming games are traditions reaching back to high school. Fireworks games will always draw a crowd to watch the festivities with friends and The Pink the Rink event is one that students can rally behind a good cause and be with their friends. As much as this sports fan hates to say it, these events are more about the social aspect than the athletics themselves.
Then again, how many must-see games are on each year on the national level? Not many watch every college basketball game, but the Final Four draws a big crowd. So does football’s Super Bowl or soccer’s World Cup. In reality, must-see sports can be counted on the palm of a hand every year.
A perfect example of this is the Olympics. How many people have a friend in the group who claims to be an expert in pole vaulting or speed skating every four years? The sport themselves aren’t must-see, but the social setting creates a must-see atmosphere to witness something the masses, including friends, are witnessing.
There is nothing wrong with CMU sports having few events that are must-see. They fall right in line with every other school and sport across the nation.
