Buzz doesn’t exist towards the alums, let alone on campus. A bunch of students will attend one game out of interest. My dad went to UMich, his dad went to UMich. My dad spoke of how he was never interested in Football at all, but loved the atmosphere and buzz that existed around the program. He probably went to one game his entire academic career there (middle eastern families didn’t know much about American Football). He was desparately trying to go to the Ohio State game last year when he was out in Ann Arbor. He always asks how UMich is doing or who they’re playing. He’s showing his interest because of the Buzz. Heck, for the first time he told me about how he remembers when Lyin Tom Herman was like “I’m not going anywhere” and the eye twitch and then announcing his move to UT the next day. I’m like “you never pay attention to this you should tell me what you see next time!”
That’s all it takes. Buzz.
That picture that was posted of CV3 officers, Ambassadors, and Coach Sampson. Sampson literally said “We wanted people to come, we wanted the students to come. But it was obvious the administration doesn’t care, so we were going to do something about it”.
He said that wherever Houston goes, it’s a sellout, but never is one here. He echoed my comments I made on this board. An announced sellout is NOT an attendance sellout.
The gameday experience (Football), and tailgating experience, is absolutely pathetic. This is after visiting a few other college towns, and those schools are G5s. My short time at UT was during COVID, but they even put effort into getting the crowd and student section riled up.
I got emails these past two days from UTSA, UT, Rice, and USAFA for tickets and buzz to their games this weekend. Nothing from UH. All UH sends is a “HELP HOUSTON R12E”. Asking for money. That’s it. Nothing for next week, nothing to build it up, no “chalk talk” or “keys to the game” or whatever. It does not exist. We tried to say “We need buzz on campus. Students aren’t going to circle XYZ games or check the calendar unless they’re sports fanatics.” One response we got was “if they cared, then they would come and look the dates up”. Our response was “Make a connection. Give them a sheet of paper or something. Let them know it’s happening, and not just by a poster stuck in the ground. Make it personal”.
Basketball sold out a midweek game against Tulane last semester for this very reason. We took a bunch of flyers from athletics and put them under the doors of freshman and sophomore dorms. That student section was a sellout and rocking. A midweek game. Against Tulane.
All you have to do is convert a few students by making it PERSONAL. That’s how you get them out there. That’s how you get them involved. “Shove it in their face” and they will come.
It’s not an Athletics problem. It’s not an admissions problem. It’s a UH problem. They’ll pour money to make athletics attractive, but not follow through with caring about what happens on campus at all. UH doesn’t keep the “Commuter School” name beacuse of the fact that people drive here, just like they do at TAMU and UT, but literally because UH doesn’t put much effort into encouraging, fostering, creating a culture ON CAMPUS to just mess around. UHPD will catch you doing something stupid and just be like ‘don’t get hurt or get us called on you’ and keep going. They get it. It doesn’t even have to be athletics. Just let people throw a frisbee in the fountains or something.
You can accept 100% commuters, 100% international students, literally anyone. You don’t have to evaluate how much someone likes sports for them to come here, because the buzz on campus, the existence of good programs, the ‘fun factor’ (which is the most important part for me) is what will get people to apply and come here. International students all have an interest in a sport. Every graduate student on the Birmingham Trip was from out of the US except for myself.
Find alums who didn’t care about this place to take a visit and bring their kids. My uncle never cared about anything here but wants his daughter to go just cause it’s close to home. She didn’t want to go at first, so I said bring her to campus and after that, she wanted to go to a game. After the UVA game? She was asking when she can apply. (She still wants UT after a few years but I think she’ll remain here after the flip happens).
