As I sat in the Student Union, waiting for new head basketball coach Will Wade’s introductory press conference, two questions occupied my mind. The first was, “When am I going to get my coupon for free McDonald’s?” The second, and more important question was, “How could our University roll out the red carpet for a basketball coach with two NCAA tournament appearances while our gymnastics team received no such event after dominating the SEC tournament?”
I know gymnastics doesn’t draw the same level of interest as baseball, basketball and football, nor does it generate a profit like football and basketball do. However, I believe any University team that beats Alabama and wins the SEC regular season title and the SEC tournament title deserves some sort of recognition — at least a school-wide email.
Even The Daily Reveille gave the gymnastics team the red-headed stepchild treatment, opting to have a story about the gymnastics team’s top regional seeding play second fiddle to the introduction of the inexperienced basketball coach, which landed a spot on the front page. In fact, if you rely on The Reveille as your only source of news — and I sure hope you don’t — then you wouldn’t know the gymnastics team dominated the SEC tourney.
The gymnastics team’s success is nothing new. The program has made the NCAA tournament 33 times (only missing three since 1982), made five Super Six appearances and finished second in the nation last year. Despite limited support from the University, the gymnastics team has capitalized on its success and increased its average attendance for the fifth year in a row, with this year’s average being 10,050.
If the University wants to have successful teams, they must recognize greatness. By recognizing greatness, I mean doing more than having a celebratory slide added to the electronic billboard on Corporate Blvd. Athletic Director Joe Alleva could have mentioned it at the press conference, but he was just glad people momentarily put away their pitchforks.
Give the students an opportunity to congratulate the team; it doesn’t have to be a photo-op where students are lured in by the promise of vouchers for free fast food, though I certainly welcome that idea. Our salute to the team could be as a simple as having students write messages on a celebratory banner that could hang in Lockett Hall, and hopefully it would be spared the fate of the “Happy Pi Day” banner.
In all seriousness, from someone who can’t even do a cartwheel, congratulations to the gymnastics team and good luck to them as they represent the University at Regionals in Lincoln, Nebraska on April 1.
Matthew Hutchins is a 20-year-old petroleum engineering major from Birmingham, AL.