Student Attendance

[devildeac]

Oh, come on. I’m not THAT old.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject but a lot of these things are very systemic at Duke and go beyond student attendance at sporting events.

Couldn't resist (hence the emojis ).

[devildeac]

Am I the only one who read this word wrong? That's what I was afraid of. I will go sit in the corner now.

Bart, is that you?

[TKG]

I think we might be confusing issues. In his press conference last night, K seemed to chastising the students for their lack of appreciation of what the team had accomplished over the past nine days; three straight conference road wins, including an emotionally and physically taxing win over the Cheats; and then a win over the 8th-ranked team in the country. K seemed to be criticizing what he thought was a lack of appreciation by the students for what his team had been through. He mentioned how young his teams is, saying they are 18, 19 and 20 year olds and they are going through this (an old school team without a Zion or Tatum or Bagley) experience for first time. It was at this point in his post game remarks that I thought he missed the mark. The students being called out are the same age as the players and many of them are going through these events for the first time as well. Should K really expect then to have the perspective for what the team has accomplished over the past nine days. K has that perspective as a coach with 40 years of experience. But the undergrads? It seems to me that he should be calling out the folks in the upper levels (who the kids had to implore to stand up during critical times of last night's game) or the folks seated behind his bench or the folks seated under each of the baskets. The ticket holders tend to be older with more life experience, perhaps they should be expected to show the appreciation that K wants for his team. It's not only on the students.

[uh_no]

First home game since he chewed out the student body for no good reason. Some students may still be pissed. I get it.

It'll get back to normal soon. One game shouldn't be a barometer for the future state of Cameron Crazies.

it's not one game. attendance is down this year. part of it is no zion/rj, part of it is the ACC is down, part of it is a long slow decline in student interest in college sports, part of it may have been the incident vs pitt, but in the latter case, it seems there was no shortage of love when K came out on the floor.

[scottdude8]

it's not one game. attendance is down this year. part of it is no zion/rj, part of it is the ACC is down, part of it is a long slow decline in student interest in college sports, part of it may have been the incident vs pitt, but in the latter case, it seems there was no shortage of love when K came out on the floor.

To be fair, it seems like we end up saying this at some point of almost every season (last season's Zion-mania probably being the exception). There was a very similar conversation going on back when I was a student. It'd be great if we had solid numbers to quantify this, but alas that doesn't seem to be in the cards...

[flyingdutchdevil]

To be fair, it seems like we end up saying this at some point of almost every season (last season's Zion-mania probably being the exception). There was a very similar conversation going on back when I was a student. It'd be great if we had solid numbers to quantify this, but alas that doesn't seem to be in the cards...

Some easy fixes? Give more tickets to the grad students (but you'd sacrifice passion and noise), allocate a certain amount to local kid charities (as long as they wear Duke blue!), create more revenue-generating tickets at the expense of student tickets.

Doesn't solve passion, but will solve attendance.

[npdevil27]

Print screen is failing me, but the Miami game was completely empty in the corners. Home ACC game, mid-week, it was just empty in the corners, worse than a game over break or a preseason game.

I've long said that it's more the upper crowd that makes Cameron really loud than the Crazies. The Crazies have their ups and downs but are generally loud.

When the upper crowd is into it and loud, THAT is when Cameron gets to jet-engine-taking-off levels.

[Acymetric]

it's not one game. attendance is down this year. part of it is no zion/rj, part of it is the ACC is down, part of it is a long slow decline in student interest in college sports, part of it may have been the incident vs pitt, but in the latter case, it seems there was no shortage of love when K came out on the floor.

Well yeah, the people who showed up aren't the people who were put off by the Pitt incident, those people would likely have stayed home. Not saying it is a significant factor, just that your observation is kind of N/A to that point.

[BLPOG]

This is not a bad question, but I don't THINK it is the case. I think only the UL game there was a space issue (they had to give students spare upstairs tickets), but the line monitors attempt to do a good job keeping the GAs out of the student space until just before tipoff, so the seats that students actually take up should not change.

I'll see the HLM tonight...might nudge him to take a gander here, as he undoubtedly has good insight as to how and why things happen the way they do.

I've been arguing since I was a student that the marginal cost of a "good" student seat is too high, in other words that it is the case, but in a way that is difficult to observe/measure under the current setup.

One way to test it would be to make the center of section 19 available again, i.e. increase the proportion of "good" seats.

[JetpackJesus]

This happened when I was at Duke, too. After a Clemson (I think) game was lightly (relatively speaking) attended by students because it was during midterms and a lot of students were busy studenting, Coach K called out the student body publicly for lack of support. I was at that game, and the Crazies who were there still delivered, I thought. A lot of students were not happy about Coach K's comments then because, well, they're students and midterms are kind of a big deal. Regardless, attendance went up in subsequent games, and Coach K went on to publicly praise the Crazies after one of those later games (they made a t-shirt with his quote on it that I still have).

It wouldn't surprise me if this is just a ploy he likes to use on occasion to motivate some of the not-quite-die hard students to come out to the games.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

This happened when I was at Duke, too. After a Clemson (I think) game was lightly (relatively speaking) attended by students because it was during midterms and a lot of students were busy studenting, Coach K called out the student body publicly for lack of support. I was at that game, and the Crazies who were there still delivered, I thought. A lot of students were not happy about Coach K's comments then because, well, they're students and midterms are kind of a big deal. Regardless, attendance went up in subsequent games, and Coach K went on to publicly praise the Crazies after one of those later games (they made a t-shirt with his quote on it that I still have).

It wouldn't surprise me if this is just a ploy he likes to use on occasion to motivate some of the not-quite-die hard students to come out to the games.

I think tactic is a better word than ploy - for this reason. K has long treated the Crazies as an official part of the program...they've been given special status by him, and I think he expects special allegiance on their part as part of the bargain. It's Duke, it's Cameron, it's the Crazies - it's just not another student section. And yes, I think he wants this to remain that way, and that yes, he has to intervene every now and again to make sure it does.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Print screen is failing me, but the Miami game was completely empty in the corners. Home ACC game, mid-week, it was just empty in the corners, worse than a game over break or a preseason game.

I've long said that it's more the upper crowd that makes Cameron really loud than the Crazies. The Crazies have their ups and downs but are generally loud.

When the upper crowd is into it and loud, THAT is when Cameron gets to jet-engine-taking-off levels.

That game was also at 9PM. Lots of people just don't do late night mid-week games. Maybe they all had a big test the next morning.

[walras]

Old grads don't seem to get it. These are not the same students from your good old days. For example, the Chronicle reported yesterday that white tenting slots are going unused.
African American students are discouraged from attending by African American faculty who see exploitation. Chinese students are less enthusiastic about games than you used to be.
I teach these kids, and have since the early 70s. They don't care as much about athletics as they do about coding. You'll have to adjust to it, I'm afraid.

[uh_no]

Old grads don't seem to get it. These are not the same students from your good old days. For example, the Chronicle reported yesterday that white tenting slots are going unused.
African American students are discouraged from attending by African American faculty who see exploitation. Chinese students are less enthusiastic about games than you used to be.
I teach these kids, and have since the early 70s. They don't care as much about athletics as they do about coding. You'll have to adjust to it, I'm afraid.

TBF, it was an unusually early start to white tenting. in past years, it's been 2-3 weeks before the game. That article rolled last week.

There is a sign hanging up on an office in the music building that said "thank you for not tenting."

[JetpackJesus]

I think tactic is a better word than ploy - for this reason. K has long treated the Crazies as an official part of the program...they've been given special status by him, and I think he expects special allegiance on their part as part of the bargain. It's Duke, it's Cameron, it's the Crazies - it's just not another student section. And yes, I think he wants this to remain that way, and that yes, he has to intervene every now and again to make sure it does.

Tactic would be accurate, sure. It really comes down to this: Coach K is a master motivator on and off the court.

[walras]

The total undergraduate population is pretty much the same as it was 30-40 years ago. There are very very many more activities, food venues, and so on as competition for student time. Durham is an attraction, not a dangerous eyesore. The library is overcrowded with kids studying, something that simply did not happen in the 70s-90s except for reading period. And there really is less drinking.

[Native]

...[the Crazies] been given special status by him, and I think he expects special allegiance on their part as part of the bargain.

How does this special status benefit students?

[J4Kop99]

Print screen is failing me, but the Miami game was completely empty in the corners. Home ACC game, mid-week, it was just empty in the corners, worse than a game over break or a preseason game.

I've long said that it's more the upper crowd that makes Cameron really loud than the Crazies. The Crazies have their ups and downs but are generally loud.

When the upper crowd is into it and loud, THAT is when Cameron gets to jet-engine-taking-off levels.

I see what you did there...


Part of this has to do with all of the "entertainment" options a college student has at his or her disposal now. Then add in schoolwork and in yesterday's case, exhaustion from the weekend and you can see why attendance continues to go down.

Side note: if some of the players end up staying in college longer, I think attendance will be positively impacted. The stronger the bond between the players and the students, the more passion for the games.

[uh_no]

How does this special status benefit students?

the preferred location in the stands is about it.

[bundabergdevil]

I see what you did there...


Part of this has to do with all of the "entertainment" options a college student has at his or her disposal now. Then add in schoolwork and in yesterday's case, exhaustion from the weekend and you can see why attendance continues to go down.

Side note: if some of the players end up staying in college longer, I think attendance will be positively impacted. The stronger the bond between the players and the students, the more passion for the games.

I'm sure there are lot of causes but I agree with this. Men's basketball has been most impacted by the allure of pro leagues and due to Duke's prestige we get a lot of the one-and-dones. I was at Duke in the late 90s/early 00s just as guys like Williams, Brand, and Boozer were starting to leave after 2 or 3 years. But you saw them around campus, in some cases even got to know them. I don't know how accessible the current one-and-done stars are but it's tough to build a crazie-to-athlete relationship when you're rooting for fresh faces each year. Hell, it's impacted my enjoyment of the game, why not the Crazies'!