I've been hearing that the student section at ETSU games this past year was disapointing compared to years past.

Generally, that's a subjective arguement, but if we could accept it for a minute I want to propose a reason why that might be.

Has anyone noticed the East Tennesseean, despite usually devoting two whole pages to sports, generally prints nothing but a press release from etsubucs.com?

This despite the fact ETSU students are demanding more sports coverage. A letter to the editor scolds the East Tennesseean for not giving enough priority to the women's basketball team.

The East Tennesseean caught some criticism last year for not supporting the revival of football wholeheartedly. The thing is that opposing football's revival, though not an opinion I agree with, is a legitimate editorial stance.

And they didn't actively take that stance. There were letters to the editor and columns both pro and con in the East Tennesseean.

Regardless, doesn't anyone want to be a sportswriter at ETSU? And couldn't some of the lack of support from the students be attributed to this?

anyone who has a decent sports opinion and understanding of sportswriting won't get anywhere near the tree hugging hippies at the east tennesseean. They had a decent one a few years ago, (by decent, I mean I can't remember his name) but haven't had a good one in some time.

Personally I don`t think there is any less interest in ETSU athletics by students than there has been. I have and hear conversations about the basketball team all the time on campus, the Belmont game has been a big topic of discussion this week. In comparison to years past though the level of support has changed and I think its changed for several reasons.

One of the major issues in the lack of support has been the demise of Buc Wild. Buc Wild is all but non-existant at this point, and it started when someone got the bright idea to charge fees to be apart of Buc Wild. The thought process was to try to boost the old Buc Wild by adding meals at games, and "better" T-shirts, buses to road games, etc. Another part was that the main student ringleaders and organizers graduated and no one stepped into their place(mostly because there were very few members after they starter their fees). Buc Wild is now completely unorganized, and people join now just to eat at halftime, signing up for Buc Wild is an entire process.

Another thing is that most A-Sun opponents just don`t excite people, yeah people will show up to watch ETSU and Belmont, but for the most part there is little excitement on campus about opponents, not like it use to be with UTC, Ap State, Davidson. Opponets are too far away for fans to travel to(students included).

Lastly like I`ve been griping about all season, the schedule is terrible for attendance. There are fewer and fewer home games, and too many of the home games we have are played on Sat or Sun afternoon. A lot more students show up to 7pm games than 2 or 4 or Sunday.

Student support could be much better, but changes are going to have to be made to reverse the current situation.