Poor Product + Bad Facility = Attendance Woes
As a UH season ticket holder, I've gotten about a dozen emails from athletic director Dave Maggard's office over the past couple of weeks, and now it appears he's pestering the local media with his attendance woes:
The University of Houston hopes to get nearly 18,000 people to attend the game against eight-ranked Louisville Saturday.
They need to have that many people attend the game to stay in compliance with a new NCAA rule that requires all Division 1A schools average at least 15,000 in actual attendance for home games.
"We want to make sure that we do this this year because we don't want to go into next year and have this hanging over our head," says U of H Athletic Director Dave Maggard, "If you're out of compliance two out of ten years, then you have a compliance problem in terms of being bowl-eligible. We want to make sure that we're not facing anything like that."
Head coach Art Briles encourages fans to attend the game Saturday. "We really need people out there on Saturday, regardless of what the weather is. We need to have people coming through there to keep the University of Houston where it belongs," he says.
I won't be heading out to that pitiful facility to sit in the rain and watch the three-win team get mauled by Louisville. I just have too much to do today, and frankly don't have the time to waste (now, sitting in the rain for Coog baseball IS something I've done, but Rayner's teams are never a waste of my time).
And whatever names the CoogFans faithful might call me, the fact is, there aren't enough of them to keep UH athletics viable. They need people like me to be fans, and people with no allegiance to the school to be interested in heading to a game from time to time.
Unfortunately, Maggard's schedule this year doomed this season about four games through. Maggard and Briles seem determined to continue to play that sort of schedule, instead of trying to rack up some wins (Bill Snyder style) and THEN thinking of upgrading the schedule if we can prove competitive in a mediocre conference destined to get worse once Louisville leaves. So, they better get used to the 15,000 fans (or worse) that sort of schedule -- and the won-lost record -- is going to draw. Maybe the Briles gimmick offense belongs at I-AA. That's where attendance seems to have the program headed.
Still, I might be inclined to go out and watch Louisville, the one impressive team on C-USA (and soon to be departing, of course). Except I'm not a big enough fan to go sit out in the rain and watch 'em, and I'm not particularly enamored of sitting out at the Robertson Dump even when the weather is nice. Move the games to Reliant, a GREAT facility, and the weather suddenly doesn't matter and the facilities are a draw, not a negative.
But that's an old refrain from me by now.
On a more positive note, I did enjoy the Coogs basketball home opener under Tom Penders last night. They played some scrappy defense and with good intensity overall except for a few lulls. It seems like they're a little short of really good shooters, but maybe they'll work their way through it. That defense should keep them in their early games, and maybe the offense will catch up by the start of the conference schedule. I'm looking forward to more Cougar basketball, and I've always liked Hofheinz (although the seats covered in black tarps is a feature I could do without).
(11-21-2004 Update) Maggard's pleas turned out a little over 20,000 yesterday, according to the Chronicle.
Head coach Art Briles was pleased, I guess:
"Our people came out in support tonight," Briles said. "It's really the first time this year that we've felt some energy from the crowd. They stayed with us until it got away there at the end."
Yeah coach, well, I was there for most of the games, and it's hard to get very energetic about the turds laid on the field all season, ya know? But I can vouch that the Robertson Crapper was definitely rocking for the Army game. Maybe you should be a little more appreciate of those fans who DID turn out for this stinker of a season!
And man, Louisville's 666 yards of total offense must have been something for fans -- their fans -- to see.
Energy indeed.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/20/04 14:12 | Sports | Technorati
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