The ticket fiasco of the first week was one thing. This week was inexcusable.
To stand in the bleachers on a gorgeous October day, on homecoming week of all times, look at the student section in Camp Randall just before half time and see two sections nearly completely empty was beyond disheartening. It was embarrassing.
I understand that the team has had a rough couple of weeks, was four games into Big Ten play and still did not have a conference victory and the games against Penn State and Iowa were downright abysmal. But if there was a week where this season could be salvaged and hope for a trip to a bowl game could be realized, this was the week. The week our team needed us behind them, and only half of the stands filled up 30 minutes into the game.
There were approximately 19,000 students who signed up for the student ticket lottery and 13,500 students who got tickets. More than a quarter of the student population on this campus has tickets, and more than a quarter of that population left their seats vacant. To those who had tickets and did not show, I wonder how the 5,500 students who did not get the tickets - including 20 percent of the senior class - feel about half of a game wasted.
I know that many folks like to blame the tardiness of students at football games on drinking. That is nonsense. I will be the first to admit that I roam up and down Breese Terrace every football Saturday and enjoy a fair number of spirits before each game - responsibly, I might add - before I head into the stadium. Occasionally a beer pong game runs into double overtime or you end up being the last one left in a round of survivor flip cup, and you realize you will not make it to your seat by kickoff. We have all been there, it happens. A couple minutes late is no big deal.
But let's face it, this week had nothing to do with drinking and everything to do with fair-weather fans. People who bought tickets and decided that just because the Badgers are in a big slump, they can shrug off being at the game, that they had better things to do. This is pretty sad, because the reason people buy tickets is to watch their team through thick and thin, isn't it? I'm guessing there are a bunch of students in the crowd of 5,500 who know that and understand that. Too bad they didn't get tickets.
To those that say, Hey, I bought these tickets, I can do what I want with them,"" yeah, fine, do what you want. Sit on them and put your pride to the side. You are the ones who mar the rest of the student body by failing to show up on such a critical weekend. And to those who said, ""Maybe I'd go if the Badgers won a few games,"" the season is far from over. So we are not going to make a BCS bowl game, but maybe if you would come and support the team you paid to see, they will still make it to a bowl game. Take pride in your team.
For those that made it out to Camp Randall, I hope you enjoyed that entertaining game. It wasn't a blowout or a nail-biter, which made it fun and exciting from start to end. Just the kind of reward a die-hard fan needed after several weeks of hard times. When Minnesota comes to town in three weeks, our bowl hopes will still be delicate, but it is the last game of the Big Ten season and will consequently say a lot about our program and the people who stand behind it. We need to be there in full force, or at least get our tickets to people who will stand in for us and do the same.
Hopefully, three weeks from now, UHS won't be too busy treating sore legs of all those ticket holders who decided to jump off the Badger bandwagon because of a couple of losses. Let's hope for the dignity of the game-going student body that all those people who decided to shrug off this one, man up and show up in our last conference game.
Feel like you have the right to pay for tickets you don't use? Tell Andy that at avansistine@wisc.edu.
