As the Charger women’s basketball team warm-up time wound down, they noticed a drastic decrease in volume — both in sound and number of people surrounding the court. Their friends and classmates left in throngs between layups and jump shots, as the stands emptied around a team that thrives on fan support.
The men’s team had played Lake Erie in an exciting game before, winning in a close contest that came down to a momentum-swinging three-pointer by Cody Smith with four minutes left of play. A nearly-full arena had cheered on the Chargers to their victory against the Storm.
After the men’s win, it was nearly 8 p.m., and accounting tests and Western Heritage papers beckoned Hillsdale students away from the Roche Sports Complex and back to study rooms and dorms. Most had been at the arena for two hours already, and the average Hillsdale student can’t afford a lot of leisure time on a weeknight.
When women play after men, both teams lose fans. Both teams end up suffering when civil rights activists prioritize political correctness over the practical reality of what is best for the basketball programs.
The GLIAC needs to change its policy of alternating yearly which team plays first and return to the way it was before the 2010-2011 season. This way, the number of fans peaks at the end and climax of the women’s game, when they really need the support, and the strong fan base will stay through the men’s contest.
The opening scenario is not merely a figment of the players’ imaginations. In last year’s Collegian, Macaela Bennett reported that attendance was down at both Hillsdale teams’ games when they switched to the men-first format.
GLIAC Commissioner Dell Robinson said that was a trend seen at all schools across the conference when the switch was first implemented in 2010-11.
“Hillsdale women lost over 3,000 fans, while Saginaw Valley State University and University of Findlay each dropped over 5,000. Eleven of the women’s teams saw attendance numbers increase again in the 2011-12 season when it was again the men’s turn to play second,” Bennett reported.
The whole change was brought about by the nosy Michigan Gender Equality Team, which not only lacks a clever acronym, but also nonsensically claims that having the women play first forces them into a “warm-up role.” They got the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) involved, and they brought down their bureaucratic first on the GLIAC, bullying them into changing their ways.
Well, Michigan Gender Equality Team, although the GLIAC may not be led by rocket scientists, believe it or not they have some handle on what works for their basketball programs. Imagine that maybe the GLIAC has reasons other than hating women’s sports for doing what they do.
At the risk of being hunted down by the Michigan Gender Equality Team, I will claim that a larger fan base gathers for men’s games than women’s. The statistics clearly support this statement. The women still draw their own crowd of dedicated fans, but they benefit from the men’s fans coming to the games early or planning to purposefully catch the second half of the women’s game before the men’s.
If students had seen unfairness in the women-first order of play, I would be all for addressing the problem, as men’s basketball head coach John Tharp suggested in last year’s article.
But when Hillsdale’s female players and coaches prefer the original order, as Bennett reported, and attendance numbers back up their beliefs, the GLIAC cannot allow this injustice to endure.
Official basketball practices started this week, and while the order is back to women first when the GLIAC season starts in December, it’s not a permanent change and the cycle of nonsense will continue next year. Robinson claims they will address the issue in a few years, after all possible measures of trying to increase attendance have been exhausted.
That makes no sense. Spend all available resources on fixing a solution to a problem that never existed? Looks like the bureaucratic mindset of committee-driven America has weaseled its genius into Hillsdale College basketball.
Gather the powers-that-be, Dell. Stand up to the OCR and reverse this failed experiment. Chalk it up to a good try and move on – for the sake of fans, schools, and most importantly, the student-athletes who want to play before a spirited crowd.
