Dear emdypo,
Correct about Bowen.
On another note, has anyone been watching the MAC Championship between Akron and Ohio? IT doesn't matter which of these teams wins it, the MAC is in big trouble. For a championship game I can't believe the sloppiness, turnovers, bad shot selection, etc.

(03-16-2013 12:27 PM)emdypo Wrote:  Murphy has been standoffish with fans, university staff

Why am I not surprised?

(03-16-2013 06:35 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear emdypo,
Correct about Bowen.
On another note, has anyone been watching the MAC Championship between Akron and Ohio? IT doesn't matter which of these teams wins it, the MAC is in big trouble. For a championship game I can't believe the sloppiness, turnovers, bad shot selection, etc.

Glad to see Akron win it though out of these two. From what it seems like the few Akron fans that are here on the boards seem to be more reasonable people than a couple of really bad apples who have seemed more concern about EMU's attendance than their own university.

Plus of course Dembrot being a former EMU assistant doesn't hurt either.

(03-16-2013 12:27 PM)emdypo Wrote:  The issues with attendance go well beyond wins and losses. The truth is there are several reasons for the decline and not until our football and basketball programs win consistently will we start to see an increase. As someone who has been around EMU for about 15 years here is a list of issues. First with football, when they built the Convocation Center they bulldozed the largest tailgate area, those of us that attended games in the 90's won't lie and say there were 30,000 fans but there were thousands more and the tailgate atmosphere was much better. Second, EMU has decimated it's greek system, it doesn't matter if you like fraternities or sororities or think they are the lamest things ever, when EMU had a vibrant Greek system in the 80's and 90's they were a huge portion of the fan support base. This isn't my opinion, The greek system has shrunk from roughly 5 percent of the student body in the 1990's to less than 2 percent now. When you loose hundreds of kids who most likely lived in the area and attended sporting events that is a factor. Third, Atmosphere is a huge issue at the Convocation Center, now I've been to most of the venues in the MAC, and the Convocation Center with its new scoreboard is a top notch arena but its is also has no personality and when empty lacks any kind of individuality or connection to the University. Fourth, Our basketball coaches have been terrible represetatives of our University and their teams. Charles Ramsey was a giant a-hole, he was accused of choking a student as well as bullying his own players. Now we come to Murphy who after one year already tried to bail for the NBA, he has brought in players like Ray Lee and James Still, both problem players with questionable backgrounds, one of which is going to prison. No one wants to watch thugs coached by thugs. Murphy has been standoffish whith fans, university staff and has been a poor choice for EMU. I believe Ron English was a great hire for EMU and while the results haven't been great, he is a great mentor to his kids, he leads by example and when his players have embarrased him, the university or the program he took swift action. While I patiently await the day where i watch a basketball game or football game at EMU with nearly full arena's I'd prefer to have programs I'm proud of, our basketball team may be closer to a winning progam but as far as I'm concerned its much further from being a program of integrity. Good Luck Eagles Football, Hopefully this is the season you guys break through.

Great stuff. It's so refreshing to read someone who actually has an intelligent, honest opinion rooted in reality--no matter how unpleasant. There's not many of us here. I TOTALLY agree with you about English. He is a classy guy and he will succeed or fail-- doing it the RIGHT way. EMU alumni can be proud of English and the hard work he puts in. I really hope he finds success this season, he deserves it.

As for the basketball program, this tournament showed just how far away we are from contending. And worse than that, Murphy has done NOTHING to connect with the EMU community. There is no passion or buzz for EMU basketball. It is sad. If you're not passionate about being at EMU, leave...please!

Tailgaiting is the fabric of college football. Instead of tailgating in a crumbling, dirty parking lot across a busy street. We should set up tailgaiting tents on the eastern side of the stadium. We need to get people to use both sides of the stadium, build some excitement. I have been saying for years that having an entirely empty side of the stadium looks TERRIBLE on TV. My solution is to put half the band in the east side stands, create an alumni section and have some of the cheerleaders on that side too. This is EMU's home stadium, the visiting team's fans should not feel like they own half of the stadium. I previously had posted on here that Rynearson needed color, that the drab gray cement look was depressing...low and behold, they painted the walls green and put up the fatheads. Coincidence? or maybe EMU actually reads our comments...If so, Rynearson needs 2 new legitimate, DI caliber scoreboards--one at each end of the stadium.

Great point about the greek system. Those are the kids who live around or near campus and thusly, attend the sporting events. Let's build that back up, make them feel involved with the sports programs.

I have to agree with Ken most of his posts on the WMU are to clarify and correct some outright lies for example the WMU poster who accuses EMU and Murphy of recruiting violations and tampering to get transfers. And the fact is guys like Chipdip aren't interested in facts like the fact that EMU has gotten more competitive in hoops and basketball over the past few years, there is no longer a WMU dominance over EMU in the two major sports. Ken isn't a WMU hater.

WMU has a great incoming freshmen group this past season, Murphy will need to hustle with this recruiting class (2013) to keep pace.

(03-17-2013 08:51 AM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  

(03-16-2013 12:27 PM)emdypo Wrote:  The issues with attendance go well beyond wins and losses. The truth is there are several reasons for the decline and not until our football and basketball programs win consistently will we start to see an increase. As someone who has been around EMU for about 15 years here is a list of issues. First with football, when they built the Convocation Center they bulldozed the largest tailgate area, those of us that attended games in the 90's won't lie and say there were 30,000 fans but there were thousands more and the tailgate atmosphere was much better. Second, EMU has decimated it's greek system, it doesn't matter if you like fraternities or sororities or think they are the lamest things ever, when EMU had a vibrant Greek system in the 80's and 90's they were a huge portion of the fan support base. This isn't my opinion, The greek system has shrunk from roughly 5 percent of the student body in the 1990's to less than 2 percent now. When you loose hundreds of kids who most likely lived in the area and attended sporting events that is a factor. Third, Atmosphere is a huge issue at the Convocation Center, now I've been to most of the venues in the MAC, and the Convocation Center with its new scoreboard is a top notch arena but its is also has no personality and when empty lacks any kind of individuality or connection to the University. Fourth, Our basketball coaches have been terrible represetatives of our University and their teams. Charles Ramsey was a giant a-hole, he was accused of choking a student as well as bullying his own players. Now we come to Murphy who after one year already tried to bail for the NBA, he has brought in players like Ray Lee and James Still, both problem players with questionable backgrounds, one of which is going to prison. No one wants to watch thugs coached by thugs. Murphy has been standoffish whith fans, university staff and has been a poor choice for EMU. I believe Ron English was a great hire for EMU and while the results haven't been great, he is a great mentor to his kids, he leads by example and when his players have embarrased him, the university or the program he took swift action. While I patiently await the day where i watch a basketball game or football game at EMU with nearly full arena's I'd prefer to have programs I'm proud of, our basketball team may be closer to a winning progam but as far as I'm concerned its much further from being a program of integrity. Good Luck Eagles Football, Hopefully this is the season you guys break through.

Great stuff. It's so refreshing to read someone who actually has an intelligent, honest opinion rooted in reality--no matter how unpleasant. There's not many of us here. I TOTALLY agree with you about English. He is a classy guy and he will succeed or fail-- doing it the RIGHT way. EMU alumni can be proud of English and the hard work he puts in. I really hope he finds success this season, he deserves it.

As for the basketball program, this tournament showed just how far away we are from contending. And worse than that, Murphy has done NOTHING to connect with the EMU community. There is no passion or buzz for EMU basketball. It is sad. If you're not passionate about being at EMU, leave...please!

Tailgaiting is the fabric of college football. Instead of tailgating in a crumbling, dirty parking lot across a busy street. We should set up tailgaiting tents on the eastern side of the stadium. We need to get people to use both sides of the stadium, build some excitement. I have been saying for years that having an entirely empty side of the stadium looks TERRIBLE on TV. My solution is to put half the band in the east side stands, create an alumni section and have some of the cheerleaders on that side too. This is EMU's home stadium, the visiting team's fans should not feel like they own half of the stadium. I previously had posted on here that Rynearson needed color, that the drab gray cement look was depressing...low and behold, they painted the walls green and put up the fatheads. Coincidence? or maybe EMU actually reads our comments...If so, Rynearson needs 2 new legitimate, DI caliber scoreboards--one at each end of the stadium.

Great point about the greek system. Those are the kids who live around or near campus and thusly, attend the sporting events. Let's build that back up, make them feel involved with the sports programs.

The use to be on the east side they moved over to the west side to make it look fuller.