New Convo Seating for Students!
It is about time! Today's DNR
JMU’s athletic department confirmed Thursday that lowerbowl Section 105 at the Convo has been converted into student seating for the 2015-16 season.
About 250 students can occupy the section, which is positioned directly across from the visiting team’s bench and adjacent to JMU’s pep band.
The move is being made, Madison athletic director Jeff Bourne said, to improve “the energy and excitement within the crowd” and overall attendance.
And in an effort to drum up support to fill those seats, Brady said he’s been taking his team around campus for the first time in his eight-year tenure to hold meet-and-greet sessions with students at their dormitories.
“It’s a selfish agenda, and I admit that freely,” Brady said. “But I think this is for everybody. Given the opportunity to get the students in the lower bowl, now that we have that lower section, we’re going to work really hard to create that atmosphere everybody wants. But now I think it’s possible.”
There are six large lower-bowl seating areas at the Convocation Center, and in Bourne’s 16 years at the school, none of those sections have been available for student seating until now.
Bourne said JMU had previously been reluctant to designate any of those areas for students because that meant having to displace a “fair amount” of longtime season-ticket holders. So over the years, the vast majority of JMU’s students have watched games from the Convo’s second- level bleachers. Smaller lower- level sections 104 and 108 have also been available for students, along with about 50 standing- room spots behind the baskets.
That configuration, Brady said, hurt Madison’s home atmosphere.
“We banished these students to the upper deck and a lot of those kids would leave at halftime,” Brady said. “I think now we have a vehicle to keep these kids engaged.”
Last season, Madison – with an enrollment of roughly 20,000 – drew an average of 588 students per home game while classes were in session. That number was inflated by the 1,966 students who were in attendance for JMU’s season-opening loss to the University of Virginia, which drew the Convocation Center’s first sellout in nearly 20 years.
The second-best turnout – 713 students – came in Madison’s home finale against Hofstra.
Overall, JMU drew 3,416 spectators per game at its 6,426-seat arena in 2014-15, the second-best average in the Colonial Athletic Association. North Carolina-Wilmington led the league with 3,955. Those numbers remain a far cry from the heyday of the Electric Zoo, when legendary coach Lefty Driesell’s presence at JMU helped pack in a programhigh 6,802 fans per game at the Convo during the 1989-90 season.
“I think a lot of people in this community yearn for the Electric Zoo, but what I think people don’t remember clearly is that the students were intimately involved in the Electric Zoo,” Brady said. “And the fact now that we have some students in the lower bowl is going to help us develop that atmosphere.”
By placing students closer to the floor, Bourne said the hope is more will choose to come out for games. The season-ticket holders affected by the move have been given new seats at different areas throughout the Convo’s lower bowl, Bourne said. Nine of JMU’s 18 home games are scheduled when students are on breaks from classes, and Madison sports information director Kevin Warner said sections 104 and 105 will be open for general seating on those dates.
JMU junior forward Yohanny Dalembert said he considers Northeastern’s Matthews Arena, in spite of its Colonial- worst 1,254-spectator attendance average last season, to be the CAA’s toughest road venue.
Why? Because the Huskies’ students are seated as close as can be to the floor, making for an unpleasant experience for opposing teams.
“When they cram the Convo,” Dalembert said of JMU’s students, “we play with more energy.”
Senior guard Ron Curry and junior forward Dimitrije Cabarkapa are the lone remaining members of Madison’s 2013 NCAA Tournament team. The Dukes clinched that bid by beating Northeastern for the CAA title in front of a pro- Madison crowd at Richmond Coliseum.
Cabarkapa, a redshirt player that season, remembers that day well – and the role JMU’s fans played in the victory.
“There were thousands of people, JMU people, purple people in Richmond, and I bet that that was one of the significant factors that helped us win that final game,” Cabarkapa said. “So the crowd is always important, and I’m glad to see the students at basketball games.”
Bourne said this season’s seating reconfiguration – which is limited to JMU’s men’s basketball games – is a “trial run.” The Convo’s seating arrangement is adjusted every four years, mostly so Duke Club members who have made significant donations can get a shot at securing better seats. Bourne said part of the timing behind this season’s change is to gauge student interest to help with the seating design of the proposed new 8,500-seat Convocation Center.
“ We have the flexibility of adding to this,” Bourne said. “If it becomes an issue where there’s strong student demand, we’re certainly open-minded and looking at the opportunity to make more opportunities available to students. We certainly need them, and we want them to be able to enjoy that experience while we’re here.”
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New Convo Seating for Students!
