The mob of screaming students in the stands tomorrow will be a rare treat for DePauw's football players.
Add up the attendance of all five DePauw home games this year, and it only roughly equals the attendance of one Monon Bell Game: 7,400 fans for this season compared with the 7,300 fans at last season's match between DePauw and Wabash College.
Those numbers confuse the players.
"I don't know what it is," senior wide receiver Ryan McGuffey said, "but there really has never been a great student involvement here except at Monon."
When McGuffey exits the locker room tunnel every Saturday, he hopes to see a full stadium.
"In high school, the average crowd at my games was 6,000," he said. "[At DePauw] the majority of the time, our fan support is mediocre at best. It really is too bad."
McGuffey said he wishes students would fill the stands.
"As a player, I cannot describe the great feeling you get when you come out of the locker room and see thousands of fans wearing the black and gold, standing and shouting for the team. I wish that was the case here."
And it's just not DePauw football that lacks better fan support, but all sports. On most fall Saturday afternoons, students have a chance to see football, soccer, volleyball or field hockey games. On winter weekends, basketball games fill the Lilly Athletic Center at night, along with swimming during the day. And in the spring, the baseball, softball and tennis teams play. All events are free.
"We've tried to answer students' complaints to advertise [the sports] better," said DePauw's sports information director, Bill Wagner. His office overflows with stacks of schedules, statistics, and roster photos. Posters of the 1998 NCAA Div. III Women's Basketball Championships line the wall over his desk.
When the play-offs came to Greencastle two years ago, Wagner was sure he could pack Neal Fieldhouse with fans. For only the second time in DePauw history, the women's basketball team was hosting the second round of the NCAA Div. III Championships. Wagner sent out postcards to every DePauw alum within driving distance, hung up posters across campus, and sent all students a flyer in the mail.
Yet, on that chilly March Friday night, only a half-full house watched DePauw defeat Austin College to move on to the third round. On a campus where students frequently complain there's nothing to do during the weekend, Wagner was disappointed by the low turnout.
If a rare play-off game could not draw a large fan response, imagine the sparse attendance at regular season events. At a school with 2,200 students, in a town with 10,000 residents, Wagner estimates that 1,000 fans go to each football game, 250 to each basketball game, 75 to each soccer game, and 50 to each field hockey game.
Attempts to increase advertising seem to have little effect, according to Wagner.
"It's going to take a change in the mindset of students," he said. "You really need to make an effort to go to the games."
Junior Jack Stahlmann makes the effort. Every weekend, Stahlmann roams the sidelines and stands, watching his fellow students play.
"Recognizing the players' faces is a big reason I go," he said. "It's fun to see your friends play sports." However, Stahlmann added that it is tough to get other students excited about going to the games. "The response is usually negative," he said.
When senior Adolfo Rios transferred from Washington State University two years ago, he said he noticed a difference between his former school and DePauw.
"There's no spirit to go to the games [at DePauw]," he said. "At Washington State there were pep-rallies, talks all week, and you built up this animosity for the other team." Rios said he thinks there isn't enough sense of rivalry to draw fans like him to the stands.
Perhaps that is why the Monon Bell game draws so much attention. It is a deeply etched tradition for DePauw to play the all-male Wabash College, located just 27 miles north on Hwy. 231. In addition, the Bell game is the last of the year and DePauw narrowly leads the all-time series 49-48-9.
For this game, hundreds of rivalry T-shirts are sold, dozens of fans paint tiger stripes across their faces, and more than a thousand alumni return to campus to experience the event.
"You don't only want to beat the team; you want to embarrass them," Rios said. "And that makes it fun."
But this is just one game. What about the rest of the season?
"I don't know why more students don't come to the games. I don't think it's because they're over in the library," said professor of sociology Jim Mannon. He and other professors frequently look around Neal Fieldhouse and wonder if they outnumber students at the basketball games. "There seems to be the mentality at DePauw that it's just not the thing to do on a weekend night."
On a cold winter evening in Greencastle, Mannon said he believes the basketball games provide good entertainment.
"It's more fun if students are there making some noise," he said. "I think [attendance] could be better, especially since both the men's and women's teams have been successful in the last years."
Sophomore Colin Cress hears, reads and keeps up with DePauw sports, but he rarely watches the teams from the stands.
"If I knew people on the teams ... or if [DePauw sports] were more of an event, maybe I would go, he said. "But they just don't do anything special to separate themselves from all the other things to do on campus."
The low game attendance is not because students do not like to watch sports. Walk into any fraternity house on a Saturday afternoon and a pack of guys surround the television, blaring with the voices of Keith Jackson and Bob Greise. Division I college football, Indiana University, Purdue University, Michigan University: These are the teams students are watching.
Many students spend their whole lives rooting for the big schools' teams, which receive a lot of national media attention.
"One of the problems is that it takes a while for people to find their DePauw spirit," Stahlmann said. "As a freshman, I can remember it was tough for me to all of a sudden get excited about DePauw sports. I had been cheering for the Gophers all my life," said the Minnesota native.
This year Stahlmann tried to create a little more DePauw spirit when he hosted the first Marvin's Midnight Basketball game. During the event Marvin's restaurant gave away free food, and the event allowed students to catch a glimpse of this year's basketball teams and participate in shooting and slam-dunk contests. Turnout was decent, but the real test will be when the season gets underway in a few weeks. There's no free Marvin's for coming to those games.
However, there is one solid base of fan support that the men's basketball can count on. At every game, 30 to 40 yellow-and blue-lettered Alpha Tau Omega shirts line the far end of the fieldhouse. They cheer boisterously, heckle the opposing team, and emphatically let the referee know when he has made the wrong call.
"We try to make it interesting every time we go out," said ATO president Jon Fancher. He said that a lot of ATO members used to play sports in high school, so they can relate to the players. "From someone who used to play basketball, it's always a huge lift to hear the fans cheering for you," Fancher said.
Every Monday at chapter meetings, the house advertises upcoming games. Then a couple hours before tip-off, the fans get hyped up for the match.
"I'd say that eventually 80 to 90 percent of the guys [in the house] go to the games," said Fancher.
But few greek houses seem to emulate ATO's sporting spirit. In his days at Miami University, Wagner remembers when his fraternity would almost always link a sporting event with a social event. This year several houses sponsored tailgate parties before the football games, but game attendance remained low.
"It's weird, because people will tailgate, and then go home," Stahlmann said.
Wagner said the only time he sees a big greek turnout is around rush and recruitment. That's when many greek members attend DePauw sporting events in their lettered shirts to advertise their houses to freshmen.
Fancher admits that, "It is a good rush tool, for freshmen to see your house." But even after rush, his house shows up in their usual force at the games.