Time to show up or shut up | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Time to show up or shut up

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You are certainly not alone in wondering why our fanbase insists on being fractured. I don't get it either - never have. No other college fanbase in the country goes through constant bickering between football vs hoops fans; mens hoops vs womens hoops fans; etc. Being split absolutely hurts our P5 profile. If everyone who supported hoops also supported football, then there would be absolutely zero questioning of UConn's fanbase. There is no question that we are a basketball school and that is okay. There are other basketball schools who have made a niche inside the P5 - UNC, Duke, Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Kansas - and NONE of those school's fanbases have a football vs basketball split. That's probably the reason why they are in the P5 and we are stuck bickering amongst ourselves in the AAC. So very frustrating.
All of those schools have been playing top level football a lot longer than UConn. Most UConn fans grew up watching top level basketball and are new to the FBS scene. Hence the frustration of playing in CUSA while all of our rivals continue to play top level competition.
What hurt us the most was being late to the party, being in New England hurts, having a history of playing schools without big time football hurts and of course the awful play on the field during the most important period of CR hurts. UConn's situation is so unlike any other that comparing us to any other school is silly. Blaming the fans is also silly when so many other factors out of our control led to this mess.
 
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He's just another person who beat the NHL return to Hartford drum...oh woe is me UConn is in the AAC...and on and on and on! These are the band wagon fans UConn sports really doesn't need...but has to put up with. After reading his 4 posts I can see that @Muddler is a disgruntled hoops fan who could care less about any other sport.

I'm not beating any drum. It doesn't take a genius to see that playing a schedule of former Conference USA schools isn't going to put people in the seats. Good for you for getting excited for East Carolina. If UConn doesn't get in a major conference you can complain about me with the other 11,000 at the game. CT might not be the most exciting place in the world, but people have more options as to how they choose to spend their money than Fayetteville, AK. You can't claim UConn is in a great market between NY and Boston and then expect all those people with tons of options to get excited about Tulsa.
 
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I'm not beating any drum. It doesn't take a genius to see that playing a schedule of former Conference USA schools isn't going to put people in the seats. Good for you for getting excited for East Carolina. If UConn doesn't get in a major conference you can complain about me with the other 11,000 at the game. CT might not be the most exciting place in the world, but people have more options as to how they choose to spend their money than Fayetteville, AK. You can't claim UConn is in a great market between NY and Boston and then expect all those people with tons of options to get excited about Tulsa.

I'm guessing you can count the number of UConn football games you've been to in the last 10 years on Jason Pierre-Paul's right hand?
 
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I'm not beating any drum. It doesn't take a genius to see that playing a schedule of former Conference USA schools isn't going to put people in the seats. Good for you for getting excited for East Carolina. If UConn doesn't get in a major conference you can complain about me with the other 11,000 at the game. CT might not be the most exciting place in the world, but people have more options as to how they choose to spend their money than Fayetteville, AK. You can't claim UConn is in a great market between NY and Boston and then expect all those people with tons of options to get excited about Tulsa.
I'm gonna chalk you up as another pissed off men's hoops fan who can't see games against his precious PC, St Johns, GTown and Villanova! Yeah the schools that helped destroy the BE as much as the ones that left in CR! Newsflash for you I live about 20 miles from Yankee Stadium, just over 30 miles from MSG and about 40 miles give or take from Met Life. I can go see pretty much what ever sporting event I want college or pro..I am CT born and bred..didnt go to UConn but I grew up 10 minutes from campus and bleed blue! I choose to go to UConn sporting events. You..you just have a LOT to say and don't contribute 1 thing to being a solution to the problem!
 
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I am a Whaler fan...one who refuses to root for the Hurricanes except to see them lose each and every game they play...a fan who had to find another NHL team to root for after growing up bleeding green & white. My issue is with those who think the NHL will return and that UConn hockey belongs 100% in Hartford.
Agreed on the Hurricanes. I was very disappointed when Karmanos survived his heartattack. I'm that vindictive.
I have no problem hoping the NHL returns, although I don't count on it.
And I do like half the games in Hartford, half on campus. A lot of the big games in downtown, maybe a few big ones on campus..a lot of the "smaller" HE teams on campus.
I do have to admit I love having a good Sam Adams when I'm at the game...can't get that in an on campus rink. When I was at the great comeback up at UNH to end the season it was strange not being able to drink a beer. I was hyperventilating...fortunately it was all worth it when the great comeback went down
 
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I'm gonna chalk you up as another pissed off men's hoops fan who can't see games against his precious PC, St Johns, GTown and Villanova! Yeah the schools that helped destroy the BE as much as the ones that left in CR! Newsflash for you I live about 20 miles just over 30 miles from MSG and about 40 miles give or take from Met Life. I can go see pretty much what ever sporting event I want college or pro..I am CT born and bred..didnt go to UConn but I grew up 10 minutes from campus and bleed blue! I choose to go to UConn sporting events. You..you just have a LOT to say and don't contribute 1 thing to being a solution to the problem!
I'm more like you in that I watch any UConn sport no matter who they play but can you really blame anyone for not getting a superjohn for the AAC, really? Basically you're pissed off that more fans aren't like you or me, I get that but I also see both sides. UConn is in such a unique situation where blaming other fans looks foolish. We're all mad, keep doing your thing let the powers that be do their thing and get over it.
 

UConnNick

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You are certainly not alone in wondering why our fanbase insists on being fractured. I don't get it either - never have. No other college fanbase in the country goes through constant bickering between football vs hoops fans; mens hoops vs womens hoops fans; etc. Being split absolutely hurts our P5 profile. If everyone who supported hoops also supported football, then there would be absolutely zero questioning of UConn's fanbase. There is no question that we are a basketball school and that is okay. There are other basketball schools who have made a niche inside the P5 - UNC, Duke, Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Kansas - and NONE of those school's fanbases have a football vs basketball split. That's probably the reason why they are in the P5 and we are stuck bickering amongst ourselves in the AAC. So very frustrating.

It is totally frustrating, but to understand it you have to understand the history of the Men's vs. Women's BB programs, and what happened when IA football was introduced.

The women' s program came out of nowhere from nowhere, and it happened almost overnight. I think they did one of the most brilliant marketing jobs ever done by any collegiate sports program. The results were absolutely astounding. I think Chris Dailey played the biggest role in the mercurial rise of the women's program. She did anything and everything to promote that program, right down to the minutest of details. That woman would make an amazing corporate CEO in any kind of business.

She had to teach classes at UCONN back in the early days of the Geno regime. Nobody was attending their games in the old field house, so she forced the students from her classes to attend the games for extra course credits. She also gave tickets away to anybody she could get to show up. She also made the players extremely accessible to the fans. She developed a bond between the team and their fanbase. Nothing like it had ever been done before.

She built that program from the ground up, fan by fan, until they started getting a few local recruits with talent, and then Geno's skill as a coach kicked in and they started winning. The wins snowballed year after year. We started winning Big East titles. Then in 1991 we improbably made a run to the Final Four and in the semifinals came close to knocking off Geno's old UVA team where he was an assistant to Debbie Ryan.

Suddenly the women's team became a hot commodity, Gampel had just opened, so they had a beautiful, brand new venue and the talent being recruited started to snowball. It probably wouldn't have happened quite the same way if UCONN wasn't already a firmly established BB school with a large following, but some of the women's fans represented a much older demographic, and they liked the touchy feely approach with the players. They were also people who had grown tired of watching top level men's CBB or the NBA because they were old school and remembered the days of BB before the 3 pt. shot when BB fundamentals were emphasized. They suddenly saw that old time era with the below the rim women's game. I think a lot of them were non-UCONN alums and they never had supported any UCONN athletics programs prior to their interest in the women's program.

Then, having developed one of the largest women's BB fanbases, they go to No. 1 in 1995 and win the title with a perfect record. And the next thing that happened is probably a big reason why the men's and women's fanbases remain split to this day...the infamous bumper stickers:

"UConn - Where Men are Men and Women Are Champions."

Whomever dreamed up that one should be drawn and quartered. Calhoun became upstaged by this johnny come lately phenomenon, and he didn't take too kindly to it. Thus an ongoing feud was born between JC and Geno.

I used to participate in a small UCONN fan forum which was for BB discussion, men's and women's. We used to have some really nasty flame wars between the two factions. It could get really ugly. The men's only fans resented the women's program for what one poster claimed, taking attention away from the men's program. The women's only fans liked to take their own shots at the men's program. Of course some of us who were UConn grads supported both programs. I used to argue that an alumnus ought to support any team the university puts out on a field. Some folks didn't see it that way.

Gradually the old timers who support the women's program only will be gone, but I'm afraid they will have instilled their loyalty to the program in future generations. I think this divide is always going to exist, and it's detrimental to both sports and the school in general.

Now with football added to the mix since 2002, many of those same fans, mostly from the men's side, view it as nothing but a further useless distraction that takes away from the both BB programs. They mock the bowl games we've gone to as largely inconsequential. They only want what's good for the men's BB program.

I don't really know the answer. Maybe Benedict needs to invite all three factions to some kind of event where you explain to everybody that whether or not you give a dang about football, that's where the money is and that's what's going to get us to the promised land of P5 membership. At that point, the women's fans will shrug their shoulders and say so what, we could play in a conference on Pluto and still dominate the women's BB universe, the men's fans will want to return to the new Big East for nostalgic reasons, and the rest of us will scratch our heads wondering why nobody in either of those two factions get it.

Without P5 membership, both of those factions will experience a rather bleak future, watching both programs becoming increasingly irrelevant over time, because at some point the money just won't be there to recruit the high level talent necessary to compete with the P5's. Maybe Benedict can figure out a way to drive that point home and get everybody on the same page. We'll see.
 
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I'm more like you in that I watch any UConn sport no matter who they play but can you really blame anyone for not getting a superjohn for the AAC, really? Basically you're pissed off that more fans aren't like you or me, I get that but I also see both sides. UConn is in such a unique situation where blaming other fans looks foolish. We're all mad, keep doing your thing let the powers that be do their thing and get over it.
I get pissed off by those fans that bitch about UConn's predicament yet choose to do nothing about it. I get pissed off by the hoops fans both men's and women's who blame football for the ill's that have befallen UConn in CR.
 
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Agreed on the Hurricanes. I was very disappointed when Karmanos survived his heartattack. I'm that vindictive.
I have no problem hoping the NHL returns, although I don't count on it.
And I do like half the games in Hartford, half on campus. A lot of the big games in downtown, maybe a few big ones on campus..a lot of the "smaller" HE teams on campus.
I do have to admit I love having a good Sam Adams when I'm at the game...can't get that in an on campus rink. When I was at the great comeback up at UNH to end the season it was strange not being able to drink a beer. I was hyperventilating...fortunately it was all worth it when the great comeback went down
You and I have the EXACT same views on the former Whalers, their owner, and UConn hockey!
 
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I get pissed off by those fans that bitch about UConn's predicament yet choose to do nothing about it. I get pissed off by the hoops fans both men's and women's who blame football for the ill's that have befallen UConn in CR.
I honestly think this fraction of the fan base is real but overblown with the diehards and has little to do with our predicament. The big issue is getting the casual fan and general public interested. We have a ton of factors going against us being a new FBS program in a part of the country that generally isn't to keen on college football especially when a program is losing. Conferences know this, obviously we aren't going to trick anyone into thinking otherwise but we are in a densely populated market with reach into 2 other huge markets so it's not like we don't have anything going for us.
We've been hurt by our own success on the court. The casual fan sees the bball teams winning on a national stage and doesn't get the same buzz from the football team because it's still the "old guard" raising that trophy year after year.
 
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I'll bet many of you, like me, didn't even see the link at the top of the forum for tcf's stuff. I've been on here forever and just noticed it. How about, for starters, a link to watch many years of football (full game videos)

Football Game Replays

You're welcome. :cool:

Holy cow! how is it these game replays have been available and not more publicized??
 
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Many, and I mean a lot, of UConn fans are incredibly fair weathered. Win = attendance. Don't win = don't attend. This is true with men's BB, probably would be true with woman's BB (it's been a while for them tho, but even Geno acknowledgesd their fans were spoiled).

Some like to blame not attending on the fact that there are so many other options of things to do instead of go to a game (you now, like kickball.. I kid, I kid... all in good fun), forgetting the fact we are talking about 6, maybe 7 home games a season.... not every other weekend all year long. Now I don't care if people choose not to attend, that doesn't piss me off....it is their prerogative. But it's like voting an election. You can't complain about your candidate losing if you didn't even bother to show up and cast a vote.
 
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Our group will be there as always(9 seats) in section 103.

Have had seats for UConn Football since 1998 at Memorial.

Have had men's basketball season tickets since 1981(been going since 1977).

So I like most here am committed to seeing us get to a P5 conference.

It's vital we fill up the Rent(I still call it that) up regardless of who the opposition is this year.

If you can afford it look at it an investment in your and the states future.
 
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Many, and I mean a lot, of UConn fans are incredibly fair weathered. Win = attendance. Don't win = don't attend. This is true with men's BB, probably would be true with woman's BB (it's been a while for them tho, but even Geno acknowledgesd their fans were spoiled).

Some like to blame not attending on the fact that there are so many other options of things to do instead of go to a game (you now, like kickball.. I kid, I kid... all in good fun), forgetting the fact we are talking about 6, maybe 7 home games a season.... not every other weekend all year long. Now I don't care if people choose not to attend, that doesn't piss me off....it is their prerogative. But it's like voting an election. You can't complain about your candidate losing if you didn't even bother to show up and cast a vote.
This is so true. I will think twice about going to a womens game depending on who they are playing. Too many blowouts. I try to pick good matchups for the men. I go to every football game and I do know more than a few people who would go to more football games if we were in B12.
 
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That is a first... but it sums up UConn's attendance challenges pretty nicely. It's always something. We compete with people going away for labor day weekend, or work, or kid's soccer/football games/practices, or the opening of deer hunting season (fishing season for spring games), or it's too hot, or it's too cold, or it's only Maine, or... it is opening day for kickball....
View attachment 15037
Dude - being a is the surest way to drive away those who might be interested but don't live and breath football. Alienating, mocking and belittling is so unhelpful.

To my kickball friend - have fun and we'll miss you this time around. You have to get out to the next game. We need you and bring a friend. It's a great experience. Stadium is easy, nice and the game day experience is great.
 
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Not a huge fan of shaming BB only fans into becoming football fans, but I am definitely going to continue to watch every game, and plan on going to at least one game this year, more if at all possible (I work some Saturdays).

My proposal is that we change our call and response Huskies chant this year: When someone yells out "UCONN," we should respond "BIG 12!" instead of "HUSKIES!"

Maybe we should shame BB fans into going to BB games first.
 

HuskyHawk

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You are certainly not alone in wondering why our fanbase insists on being fractured. I don't get it either - never have. No other college fanbase in the country goes through constant bickering between football vs hoops fans; mens hoops vs womens hoops fans; etc. Being split absolutely hurts our P5 profile. If everyone who supported hoops also supported football, then there would be absolutely zero questioning of UConn's fanbase. There is no question that we are a basketball school and that is okay. There are other basketball schools who have made a niche inside the P5 - UNC, Duke, Kentucky, Syracuse, Louisville, Kansas - and NONE of those school's fanbases have a football vs basketball split. That's probably the reason why they are in the P5 and we are stuck bickering amongst ourselves in the AAC. So very frustrating.

Bah. I went to Kansas and it's not that different really. Basketball is embraced by everyone. Football by some (more than UConn perhaps but not by much). I will need to check with my friends, but I suspect that the loss of Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri weighs heavily on KU football. Look at who those three states border (west, north, east). While the B12 is way more interesting than the slate we get in the American, other than OU and KState those aren't the teams that filled seats at Memorial Stadium.

Here is the difference in Connecticut in my opinion. We embrace winners. In the NFL we have two storied franchises that have won several superbowls in recent years. In baseball, we have the Red Sox and Yankees (and a few straggler Mets fans). NBA? Celtics and Knicks. So then we turn to UConn basketball, which has more NCs, both men and women, than anyone else in this century. Had UConn built on the Edsall years with a great coaching hire, we'd be selling out most every game, and we'd probably be in the ACC. One more point, we have Saturday HS football in New England, not Friday night. It robs a huge population of potential fans. HS football players and their families should be a core group of potential fans, instead they can almost never go to a game. It needs to change.
 
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Bah. I went to Kansas and it's not that different really. Basketball is embraced by everyone. Football by some (more than UConn perhaps but not by much). I will need to check with my friends, but I suspect that the loss of Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri weighs heavily on KU football. Look at who those three states border (west, north, east). While the B12 is way more interesting than the slate we get in the American, other than OU and KState those aren't the teams that filled seats at Memorial Stadium.

Here is the difference in Connecticut in my opinion. We embrace winners. In the NFL we have two storied franchises that have won several superbowls in recent years. In baseball, we have the Red Sox and Yankees (and a few straggler Mets fans). NBA? Celtics and Knicks. So then we turn to UConn basketball, which has more NCs, both men and women, than anyone else in this century. Had UConn built on the Edsall years with a great coaching hire, we'd be selling out most every game, and we'd probably be in the ACC. One more point, we have Saturday HS football in New England, not Friday night. It robs a huge population of potential fans. HS football players and their families should be a core group of potential fans, instead they can almost never go to a game. It needs to change.
Pro football couldn't succeed until the Patriots merged with the NFL. Before, the NFL has been trying to establish themselves in Boston since 1929. The Celtics were lucky to be such a success before the Patriots.
 
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Bah. I went to Kansas and it's not that different really. Basketball is embraced by everyone. Football by some (more than UConn perhaps but not by much). I will need to check with my friends, but I suspect that the loss of Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri weighs heavily on KU football. Look at who those three states border (west, north, east). While the B12 is way more interesting than the slate we get in the American, other than OU and KState those aren't the teams that filled seats at Memorial Stadium.

Here is the difference in Connecticut in my opinion. We embrace winners. In the NFL we have two storied franchises that have won several superbowls in recent years. In baseball, we have the Red Sox and Yankees (and a few straggler Mets fans). NBA? Celtics and Knicks. So then we turn to UConn basketball, which has more NCs, both men and women, than anyone else in this century. Had UConn built on the Edsall years with a great coaching hire, we'd be selling out most every game, and we'd probably be in the ACC. One more point, we have Saturday HS football in New England, not Friday night. It robs a huge population of potential fans. HS football players and their families should be a core group of potential fans, instead they can almost never go to a game. It needs to change.
The large majority of high school football games played in Connecticut are now played on Friday nights.
 

HuskyHawk

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The large majority of high school football games played in Connecticut are now played on Friday nights.

Good. That's a positive step that will help build a college football culture.
 
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The large majority of high school football games played in Connecticut are now played on Friday nights.

Pop Warner kills the ability of most of the UCONN fans in my neighborhood from bringing their kids.
 

MattMang23

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Add four more season tickets to the attendance numbers. Three buddies and I bought em this morning. First time I've had season tix since about 2011, although I've averaged about three games a year. Looking forward to getting seven good games.

#BleedBlue #UConnNation
 

CTMike

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Add four more season tickets to the attendance numbers. Three buddies and I bought em this morning. First time I've had season tix since about 2011, although I've averaged about three games a year. Looking forward to getting seven good games.

#BleedBlue #UConnNation
If I saw your avatar at the Rent I'd punch him in the face, no offense. I know you probably don't look like him, but still.
 

Alum86

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If I saw your avatar at the Rent I'd punch him in the face, no offense. I know you probably don't look like him, but still.
Leave McLovin alone
 
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