Rice should embrace new football culture
Last Saturday night, real college football — you know, the body-painted, all-day-affair football — descended on the Rice campus like, well, an angry War Owl screeching into battle. Rice students got a glimpse of one of the few things big universities have worth envying: a football culture.
For the first time in recent memory, droves of Rice students showed up for a game at Rice Stadium, and a bunch of them showed up for the tailgate parties beforehand. Rice students were out throwing Nerf footballs, draining car batteries listening to loud music, and enjoying the football staple of burgers and ice cold … sodas.
A grand total of 1,193 students entered the gates of historic Rice Stadium. That may not sound like a lot when you compare us to the University of Texas. If based upon undergraduate enrollment, however, just under 45 percent of the student body attended the game. This figure can be viewed as an anomaly and a highlight — or as a building block to even higher attendance. Were we as Rice students to get together and focus on bringing out more students, football could remain the primary social event of fall Saturday afternoons. The more people show up to football games, the more people feel compelled to join their friends in attendance. Nobody has to become a rabid supporter to enjoy himself at football games, as Saturday demonstrated.
Although the game ended in gut-wrenching defeat against bitter rival University of Houston, the atmosphere all day and throughout the game was fun and should not be lost. Hopefully, those students who really enjoyed themselves fight to make it the groundwork for a social scene connected to, but not dependant upon, football. “The college experience,” that mythical creature, often finds itself somehow connected to athletics and the peripherals of sporting events, pre-game preparations and recreation paired with post-game festivities. Athletic events make for instant conversation, whether or not the people conversing have any understanding of the game at hand.
As the football program at Rice evolves, so too should the football culture. The colleges can continue to tailgate, and groups like Rice Rugby Alumni can continue to pump funds into gigantic keg-chilling machines and barbecue pits. Students, as they did on Saturday, can walk into the stadium and receive a handout with some cheers and some heckling fodder to get them into the game. And, Rice students have an opportunity to make new, lasting, football traditions.
This new team may be faced with struggles, but students should focus on the big picture and continue to support the team and attend the games. Most universities start winning first and then a football atmosphere is born. Interestingly enough, though, this atmosphere usually picks up momentum of its own and far outlasts the winning days of the program, as people become so infatuated with the camaraderie and good food that winning can, at times, be simply a compliment. Students who attend a university at the peak of athletic success should not get to have all the fun — those involved in the formative years should build some memories as well.
Rice has a unique combination of intimate size and Division I athletics — Rice has the second-smallest enrollment of any university with a Division I-A football program. This size and the layout of Rice Stadium put students a few feet from the opponents’ sideline and much closer to the action than is standard at this level of competition. By pairing what is often considered a “big school” event with our small school atmosphere, every individual is more important and involved in the magic of college football than at our state school counterpart. Rice students should do everything possible to make War Owl Saturdays a highlight of campus life, a common thread that unites the students of this special university.
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