College athletes' peers failing to supply cheers

The UNLV band blared "Love Shack" during a break in the Rebels' thrilling men's basketball game against Southern Methodist on Saturday. The in-house cameras at the Thomas & Mack Center panned the stands, searching for frenzied fans.

A tiny group of students wearing red wigs appeared on Si ReddVision. They danced wildly, strummed imaginary guitars and hopped madly in the aisles.

Then a wide-angle shot showed a section of average fans planted in their seats, many with their arms folded across their chests.

Tonight's 9 p.m. game against Texas Christian will be similar.

College athletics are perceived as a student forum, a chance to congregate and proudly show school spirit. Consider places such as Stanford, Missouri or Duke, where fans known as the Cameron Crazies, named after the Blue Devils' arena, camp out on the eve of game day for tickets.

But those crowds have become exceptions.

The Thomas & Mack, similar to most other college sports venues across the country, is having trouble attracting students. Regardless of a team's success or the number of free tickets available, student apathy at sporting events is a growing national trend.

"It's discouraging and it's frustrating," said UNLV director of community relations Terry Cottle, who oversees all ticket sales. "Obviously, we want to get more students coming than are right now."

According to figures provided by the university's sports marketing department, UNLV allots 2,700 basketball tickets per game for students. An estimated average of only 750, or 28 percent of those tickets, have been used this year.

The Rebels' downtrodden football team draws better even though it plays at remote Sam Boyd Stadium dozens of miles from campus. The school sets aside 3,700 tickets, and 1,445 -- 39 percent -- were used in 1998, the first winless season in the program's history.

The tickets are free, but all students pay an activity fee that goes toward recreational and athletic events as part of their tuition. According to Cottle, if all the allotted student tickets ever were used, UNLV "would never turn a student away."

UNLV lists its enrollment at 20,000.

"The students we are getting are having a great time," UNLV athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro said. "We just don't have enough of them."

The most prominent student fans at UNLV are the Rojos and their wig-wearing spinoff, the Frojos. They are groups of merely a dozen or so students banded together -- the Rojos in Section 110 at the Thomas & Mack, the Frojos across the court in Section 102 -- for frenetic support.

"We need to see a lot more students here -- and closer to the court," said Pete Fontano, a freshman Frojo from Carson City.

"It would be intense to be in a place full of screaming students. It's intimidating to come into another team's stadium and get hacked and jeered and heckled. And it inspires the home team to put on a show."

Not even last year's storybook basketball season drew students. An average of 871 watched Rebel regular-season home games. UNLV eventually won the Western Athletic Conference tournament and qualified for the NCAA tourney.

The 1996-97 season averaged 1,139 students a game.

UNLV's football figures have fluctuated in recent years. Student attendance during the 1992, '93 and '95 seasons hovered at slightly less than 1,200 per game. The '94 and '96 campaigns drew 1,491 and 1,389, respectively.

"There's two things we need to do," Cottle said. "Number one is getting the tickets out. Number two is getting the students to use them."

To make it easier and more fair, UNLV recently changed the procedure by which students obtain tickets.

Tickets used to be distributed through a lottery system. The student organizations were awarded 25 ducats each, with the priority based on where they fell in a pecking order that changed with each home stand.

But before this basketball season, the lottery was abolished in favor of a first-come, first-served basis. Now, any full-time student can acquire a ticket with a valid identification card at the Thomas & Mack box office. Students also may pick up as many as three more if they bring IDs from fellow students.

Temporary distribution centers also are set up intermittently during the season in the Moyer Student Union.

"Our system of distribution is good," Cottle said.

To help answer and solve the question of why students don't go to games, UNLV instituted the Student Sports Marketing Association. The group promotes athletic awareness on campus, funds special promotions such as student tailgate parties and assists in ticket distribution.

"We're at a disadvantage here," association director Scott Morrow said. "We're primarily a commuter school. And another problem a lot of other schools don't deal with, especially with our hotel management program, is so many students have part-time jobs and internships.

"It's tough to be a full-time student and employee and still have enough time to support the university."

Morrow, a 37-year-old hotel administration graduate student from New Jersey who himself juggles a job as baccarat supervisor at the Mirage, has grandiose plans for football and basketball attendance. He wants to help UNLV create an atmosphere that is on par with that of the nation's most boisterous stadiums and arenas.

"Our goal is to someday come into a Cameron Indoor (Arena) situation for men's basketball," Morrow said.

"I was fortunate enough to go on the football trip to Wisconsin this year, and I was impressed. It's a dream of mine that our football program could someday rival a Big Ten situation."

UNLV isn't close to the WAC average in student participation in either basketball or football.

An unofficial poll of the 16-team conference -- some schools merely estimate student attendance -- disclosed that an average of 1,070 students are attending basketball games. An average of 4,128 went to football games last year.

Fontano claims that students who don't attend sporting events are missing out.

"It's the funnest thing we do," he said. "We get a group of guys to come down here and we have fun.

"We don't party, we don't drink, we don't do drugs. We don't need it. Basketball gets us so hyper, so out of control. We have a Basketball Jones."

UNLV hopes the Rojos' and Frojos' spirit becomes contagious among the student body -- soon.

"We're trying to figure out what's going to pump (the students) up," Cottle said.

"We're always trying to get better. We're trying to get as many students as we possibly can for attendance because we have the seats. We want to fill them and help our teams win."

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