When I started at WSC we were in the Swenson Gym. It only held about 5,000. The place was sold out for every game and the student section was standing room only. I played trumpet in the band. we were right on the court, in the back corner. That place was so incredibly loud and alive that other teams were often intimidated. The crowd was so roccus that we, often, could not hear ourselves playing. They would start stomping on the old wooden bleachers and it would feel like an earthquake down on the floor.
When we moved to the Dee, we kept the band on the floor, in front of the student section. Student attendance was probably between 3,000 and 6,000, depending on the game and time of year. For the big games, the atmosphere at the Dee could be electric. There were times that it would get even louder than Swenson. However, the Dee has never been the PITT that the Swenson was.
Student attendace began to decline after the athletic department started to make anti student policies. One of the first BIG mistakes they made was to stop allowing students walk up admission to the game by showing a student ID. They required students to pick up their tickets at UB in the days leading up to the game. That cut student attendace by about half. Mission accomplished. I think that the athletic dept thought they could sell all of those, now empty, seats as season ticks. When they didn't raise the revenue that they thought they could, they looked around for additional sources. Some highly intellegent person in the ADs office came up with the bright idea of charging all customers for parking. That, bright idea, resulted in another 50% drop in student attendance and probably a 25% reduction in season ticket buyers.
Here is how the equation worked from that point on. Less students, less excitement at the games. Less excitement at the games, less reason to want to be there. Less reason to want to be there, less student attendance. And so on, and so on, and so on. As season ticket holders started to drop out and die off, they weren't being replaced by graduates wanting to continue following the Wildcats because they weren't fans as students. You can see where this all leads us. Less excitement, less fans, less money coming into the program. It has been a nightmare trying to turn this thing around. We took two steps forward with Ron Abeglen, four steps back with Joe, and now we are making strides with Randy.
Just a little history lesson.
