My first impression coming to UTM before my freshman year was that the student body and administration oozed orange and blue pride all day, every day.
The university does a really good job marketing its school spirit to incoming freshmen, and for the most part, it holds up. Granted I don’t see people shouting from the rooftops about UTM every day, but there is an atmosphere of school pride around campus.
However, I often don’t see this level of pride and involvement when it comes to UTM sports.
This isn’t to say that sports teams here go unloved; quite the contrary. I’ll see Captian Skyhawk and some other die-hard supporters out and about at games nearly every time I go to one.
However, I’ve noticed that not only do some sports teams get more attention than others but that there is a problem with student apathy toward UTM sports.
UTM obviously takes pride in its sports teams, but do the students? The answer to that question is: it depends.
As a lover of sports, I know that teams generally get more attention when they’re good. That applies to sports teams at nearly every level and isn’t exclusive to UTM.
I think that team performance definitely plays a factor in fan attendance at UTM. Sadly, some of our sports teams have seen better days.
At the time of writing (March 28), the baseball team is 9-15 overall and 2-7 in conference play.
The men’s basketball team made the playoffs this year despite going 12-19 overall, but the team was defeated in the quarterfinals by Jacksonville State.
The women’s team, however, made the OVC championship but fell short against Belmont. I recall a lot of media attention from that run, so I can’t complain about apathy there.
When it comes to football, arguably the most popular sport in the U.S., the Skyhawks went 2-8 and missed the postseason.
While not all of UTM sports teams are bad, the major sports that typically attract the most attention nationwide are suffering here.
UTM Sports Information keeps track of attendance at home games, and I recommend that anyone curious about student attendance at games take a look. I’ve scoured over the attendance numbers for baseball, football, men and women’s basketball and soccer.
Overall, I’d estimate that attendance is normally within the 1,000-2,000 range for football and basketball while attendance is much lower for baseball and soccer. This is likely due to seating capacity at the Elam Center and Hardy Grahm Stadium being significantly higher than the baseball and soccer fields, though.
Having attendance in the thousands might not seem so bad, but taking into consideration that UTM has over 7,000 students and only around 1,000-2,000 people show up to football and basketball games does not look great, especially considering that not everyone in attendance is a UTM student.
This looks even worse for baseball and soccer, where numbers typically stay well below 1,000.
Taking Martin’s small size and poor performance of some sports teams into consideration, it’s understandable why some students at UTM are apathetic towards school sports.
When I started my freshman year in the fall of 2017, there was a group called “The Orange and Blue Crew.” This student organization was all about representing UTM pride, especially at sporting events. But to be honest, I haven’t heard anything about them since my first year.
This is a shame, as I think that a student group solely dedicated to supporting UTM’s sports teams is a great idea. Sadly, the disappearance of said group speaks to the general apathy felt among students.
While UTM students typically aren’t showing up in droves, student-athletes tend to support their fellow athletes. John Thornton, a junior Communications major from Atoka and sports director at WUTM, said, “Typically there are not many students in attendance at events. However, other student-athletes will come out to support their fellow student-athletes.”
“For example, I do notice soccer and tennis players attend basketball or volleyball games and so on. I would say a majority of the students who do come out to sporting events are student-athletes themselves supporting their friends on different teams.”
Thornton mentioned how certain factors can greatly increase attendance, saying, “Sometimes, student attendance will be up for reasons such as homecoming or a rivalry. Or in the case of this year’s home basketball game against Murray State, the prospect of getting to see a future NBA Lottery Pick like Ja Morant brings people out.”
When it comes to certain sports getting higher attendance numbers, Thornton mentioned rodeo weekend, which is one of the biggest annual events in Martin.
The nuanced answer to the question posed in this article is that UTM students generally are apathetic to most school sports, but big events, such as rodeo weekend, and marketing can change that.
In this writer’s opinion, school sports are a large part of UTM’s identity, and it’s sad that there is so much apathy towards them. I strongly encourage my fellow UTM students to go out and support our student-athletes.
Win or lose, it’s always a great day to be a Skyhawk.
