Good post - and as a follow up to your question.... from the Enquirer this morning -
UC Fighting History/Bengaldom
By Paul Daugherty • pdaugherty@enquirer.com • November 18, 2008
I’ve never understood the concept of Loyal Fan. What does that mean, exactly? Blind love? Or steady date? Does loyalty make you a hero, a dreamer or a fool, or maybe all of the above?
Too often, teams take advantage of their fans’ loyalty. “If you’re a fan, be a fan,” Bengals coach Marvin Lewis decreed earlier this fall, when the Bengals were 0-for-the-season. Love us, even as we abuse you. There are hotlines for that sort of thing.
If you continue to spend time and money being a loyal Bengals fan, is that something to be proud of, or something to have looked at by a professional? It’s not up to you to support bad business. It’s up to bad business to give you something to support. Isn’t it?
Which brings me to Brian Kelly.
The UC football coach allowed after his team’s win in Louisville Saturday that he would be (word for angry, rhymes with “kissed”) if there weren’t “five hundred thousand” fans at Nippert Stadium Saturday, for this week’s biggest football game in UC history. He and his team had done all they could do, the coach said. Now, it’s up to the people. It sounded like a referendum on local fans, and on the support for Bearcats football in general. Which was nuts.
No one knows what the time frame is for converting pro football fans to college football fans, in a pro football town. We could be about to find out. It’s wishful, in this economy, to think there are enough of both here to fill up two stadiums every fall weekend.
For now, here’s what Kelly has to deal with: A local affection for the Bengals that borders on delusional; a UC football history featuring middling results at best, in leagues nobody cared about; a two-year run on major success that still needs padding.
If you want a sold-out stadium, don’t win one Big East title. Win two in a row, three out of five. Don’t just schedule Oklahoma. Beat Oklahoma. This isn’t Morgantown. Change can occur here. Usually in geologic time. Certainly not in two years.[/size]
At his Tuesday media gathering, Kelly defused the postgame comment, typically smoothly and with humor. “My boss disciplined me severely. (It was) probably the strongest discipline I’ve faced since I’ve been here.” Just as you were reaching for the cell phone to dial up athletic director Mike Thomas for a comment, Kelly added, “My boss is my wife. (She) was really upset because of my language. My 7-year-old heard that.”
Brian Kelly is Irish in all respects, most of them delightful. He could charm a viper from a basket and make it think it was a puppy. He has the twinkly eyes, the quick wit and the gift of con. If he has to hold himself up for inspection to help his program, he will. And, frankly, he has a point. “You made 60 public appearances in the offseason,” I began a question. “Seventy-six,” Kelly corrected. “It’s all been grassroots. Chicken On The Run (restaurant, in Deer Park) was one of my favorite places.”
The coach has sold UC football, and UC football is 18-5 under his command. So when he says “There’s no reason why it should not be the largest crowd in the history of Nippert Stadium” Saturday, he has earned the right. Still, change doesn’t occur overnight.
“I don’t think there’s an obligation. There is nothing that says, ‘I live in Cincinnati, I gotta go see the Bearcats.’ If you stink and you’re not recruiting locally, and you’re not engaging the community, if you’re not doing it the right way, I wouldn’t go pay your money, either. But we’re doing those things,” Kelly said. In other words, loyalty is a two-way street.
The Bearcats play Pitt Saturday. Nippert Stadium should be sold out. If not, keep winning, BK, and it will be. Love for UC football is conditional, not blind. Just the way it should be.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081...3/1062/SPT