Let’s go out to the ball game.
Hillsdale has lousy attendance at sporting events. Students are so busy with classes, jobs, and other commitments that they don’t pay attention to the athletic calendar unless they’re somehow involved with the athletic program.
We should change that this year.
At Hillsdale we often talk about the importance of building community. Attending sporting events and bonding with fellow students over the common goal of winning is a good way to do so. And the more games students attend, the more shared knowledge we’d have about the sports and athletes at our school.
Rooting for sports boosts mental health by offering a healthy escape from work and creating a sense of pride in victories, according to University of Akron psychologist Ronald F. Levant.
“Identifying with your sports teams is one of the ways you can vicariously experience success,” Levant once said. “And in real life, success is hard . . . a lot of things don’t always go our way.”
Many people across the U.S. missed live sports during the rise of COVID-19 last year. When several popular professional sports returned to play in August, Bud Light made use of the public’s desire for the games with their advertisement that reworded “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The TV spot touched on the shared excitement that sports are “finally back” with lines like, “baseball or football or racquetball. We don’t mind, we’ll watch any at all!” Being a sports fan is a way to step aside from the heavy issues of the day and get invested in something that ultimately doesn’t affect your livelihood.
It’s hard to attend professional games right now because of the limited attendance at some locations, and no attendance at others. Fewer tickets means more expensive tickets. But with the delayed return of sports at Hillsdale, we now have more opportunities than usual to attend games this spring. Hillsdale students also have a much greater chance to get into a campus game, and most are free to attend.
Attending a Hillsdale game is not the same as watching professional athletes, or even a Division I college game. Some parts are better. In Division II, you can actually get seats right in front of the action for free, and the athletes are still far more skilled than the average fan. Jeff Landis and Sam Catron make hitting a ball with a bat look a lot easier than it is. And we have the chance to see them much closer than we would in any affordable Major League Baseball seat. It’s a combination of the best elements of high school sports and professional athletics.
This year in particular, many of Hillsdale’s sports teams have had superb seasons worth celebrating. This men’s basketball team won the Great Midwest Athletic Conference regular season championship and made it to the NCAA Division II Sweet 16 after its first tournament win in 20 years. Women’s volleyball had a 13-1 record and won its fourth-straight G-MAC title. The women’s swim team won all of its regular season meets and is headed to the G-MAC championship next week. Despite this, each of these teams’ home games typically attracted only about half the allowed attendance.
Now, football is finally back and the weather is warming up. Let’s give our peers a better audience this time. After all, athletes typically perform better when fans are in the stands.
Guys, take note: sports games are also fun dates. Especially with the limited date options in Hillsdale, the surplus of spring sports provides a new place to take your girl. You can bond over your shared support for the Chargers. It’s beneficial for the two people in a relationship to both be sports fans, according to clinical sports psychologist William Wiener, Ph.D.
In a normal fall football season, students tend to bond over the first few football games. We join in a unified desire for one thing: the Chargers winning. And we share uniquely Hillsdale experiences from the games — like chants that reference Aristotle and other aspects of the core curriculum. We lacked this all-campus fun last fall. We should take advantage of having more sports than usual packed into the spring. Hillsdale football has a home game next weekend, let’s go support our Chargers.
Rachel Kookogey is a junior studying rhetoric and public address. She is the Opinions Editor for the Collegian.
