Yesterday I posted about mock trial, one of the activities that dominated my four years in high school. Today, I’ll post about an activity that dominated my four years in college. This won’t be out of the ordinary for my blog, though: it’s about Harding basketball.
For several years, I was a self-proclaimed Rhodes Rowdie at Harding. I didn’t paint my face, and I wasn’t one of the guys standing down on the floor, but I attended every home game and screamed my lungs out to root on the Bisons. Starting my sophomore year, I started tracking some stats and writing about the games, and that eventually turned into what you’re reading most of the time on this blog.
I’ve defended the seemingly crazy idea that a person would root so hard for a Division-II basketball team. At least when I was at Harding, the games were a whole lot of fun and a great stress reliever.
Now, I’m not so sure. Average attendance was down to 2,095 last year from 2,420 in 04-05, but the team was also down somewhat in both of those years. I guess you could say that the attendance numbers were catching up with the perceived decline in the quality of on-court play. Of course, we’d love for there to be the same number of fans regardless of the team’s record, but that’s probably not a reasonable expectation.
So, it should be no surprise that attendance is on pace to be down even more this year. So far, the average attendance at home has been 1774, but when you take into account the home games that were played with no students on campus, I would expect the final number to be in the 1850-1900 range, which might knock HU out of the NCAA’s yearly rankings (which usually include the top 15 D-II schools). That’s about 2,200 for the home games when students are around, but you would usually expect about 2,500-2,600 for those games in a given year.
A group of upperclassmen is trying to change that, but they’re not going about it in a way that’s likely to bring any kind of positive result. They have posted a set of rules on the “official” Rhodes Rowdies Facebook message board designed to bring back the old atmosphere, but I find them overly restrictive and almost entirely without merit. Here’s the list:
RHODES ROWDIES RULES:
1. Black and White paint. Paint and skin is OK, no gold.
2. Wear ALL BLACK AND WHITE if you are on the front line. No other colors… Black and White.
3. Front line is based on senority based on yrs of participation.
4. Paint is to be intimidating. Nothing “cute”, “funny”, or “sweet”. No hearts, stars, or happy faces, unless the face is a complete painted face and its purpose is not to be “happy”
5. The MEN of the front line begin the chants and keep up the spirit of the Rhodes.
6. There are 3 major leader of the Rowdies, based on senority (see rule 3) Let the leaders rule. This years leaders who stand out are Josh Lee, Bryan Labello, and Jake Wood.
7. Do NOT over-use chants.
8. Be MEN
9. Be INTIMIDATING
10. Be LEADERSAny questions? Ask a Leader of the Rhodes Rowdies.
I know I’m not the only person who finds this list to be totally ridiculous. It completely violates the spirit of the Rhodes Rowdies and any semblance of sportsmanship and respect for others. There are plenty of great fans (maybe the best ones, given the evidence from the above post) who are ladies and underclassmen. They deserve the chance to lead cheers and stand on the floor just as much as the arrogant senior guys do. If they get to the games early and take people’s “reserved spots,” so be it. If they’re out of step with acceptable chants, these guys have the influence to override them and influence them in a far more reasonable way.
If you ask me, the underclassmen and ladies need to stand up for themselves and show these guys what it means to be a Rhodes Rowdie. Wear a little gold, stand down front, be just as rowdy as they are, and be even more inventive with your cheers. The guys making these rules don’t rule the school, and you shouldn’t let them. Don’t let them guys ruin the fun for you and everyone else who wants to see the Rhodes full again. The last thing Harding needs is another set of poorly-thought-out rules.
jfwiii.net 
Yeah, when I got that message in facebook I laughed at the sender. Unbelievable. During the good old days of “rhodes rowding” (used now as a verb) they would have never stood for that. #7 is crazy! don’t over use a chant? c’mon, pretty much the only way the bisons can win is if they drain 3 pointers like crazy causing “ole” to be over used.
Speaking of facebook and basketball attendance. This link is a video that was played at lipscomb chapel last semester. It’s funny because their begging to get ONE THOUSAND at the game, clearly an off day for the rowdies.
Lamenting about Harding’s attendance dropping to around 1800???
You could have gone to TCU. This is what 58 wins in 5 years and an unpopular coach will do for the support of a team that has played in both C-USA and MWC against quality competition. If it wasn’t for the season ticket holders to skew official attendance numbers, there’s probably 700 people who attend per game.
http://www.newsnow.tcu.edu/52MensBBallatSD.html
I don’t think there’s 200 people in the latter clip.
Intimidating paint?!? I guess that Dutch Boy must be for sissies!
What is “senority?”
These sound like rules for a neighborhood treehouse of 8 and 9 year old boys.
Well-put, Jay. I’d put the “neighborhood treehouse” comment on the message board if they weren’t deleting each of my posts.
I think “senority” has something to do with being a Spanish patriarch.
I’ll have to watch that video when I get home…I have no sound on the computer here at work.
How ridiculous. I love the way that these guys apparently think that starting a facebook group gives them the authority to make decrees which are binding on the fans.
I always loved going to Harding games, and would love for the atmosphere to be like it was a few years ago, back when we had Farley, Malek and company.
But seriously, creating strict guidelines that everyone is supposed to follow? Seriously guys, get over yourselves.
Yeah, I was talking to a fellow member of the incoming class of 2002 last night (Chris-Man from above), and we reminisced about having come in as freshmen at the absolute peak of the Harding program. It was nice for us, since we know what the atmosphere can be like; I distinctly remember not being able to hear myself think toward the end of the Henderson State game that year, when Chad Ware missed his three from the corner.
I just wonder how much of the decline in attendance is attributable to the decline in the team’s quality. If every team during our time there had won 20+ games, would we be talking about the sad state of the Rhodes Rowdies? I’m honestly not sure. I guess we should still be happy to out-draw almost 100 D-I teams, but I’d love to see things back to the way they were four years ago.
Looking at the Facebook group now, it seems that cooler heads have prevailed (even if they still deleted both of my wall posts, which I thought were reasonable). Someone wisely deleted the original list of neighborhood treehouse rules posted above, but I get the feeling that the damage has been done by the deranged senior “leadership” that wants to enforce them.