By Aaron O'Connell
The Chiles Center is not a particularly large arena in which to host college basketball. It sits mildly in the upper third in capacity of arenas in the WCC, seating about 5,000 fans.
Now, the University of Portland is not a particularly large school either.
But I cannot, for the life of me, tolerate another school's crowd dominating the Chiles Center with their hackneyed cheers.
The performance is pitiful, sad and not at all indicative of the steps our basketball programs have been making in recent years to become a veritable powerhouse in the WCC.
Now this isn't to say there aren't rowdy Pilot fans out there, and that we consistently fail in creating attendance at home games.
When the Pilot men's basketball team beat the Saint Mary's Gaels at home, like at the University of Washington game, the fans stormed the court in jubilation, commemorating the fact their team had knocked off a ranked opponent for the first time in 28 years.
A few audacious fans threw shoves and elbows to the defeated Gaels (who responded with shoulders of their own) before surrounding their team, spawning a miniature brouhaha on the Chiles Center floor.
Now, that is a step in the right direction.
But this year, the men's basketball team is making some noise in the preseason talk, and it's time the fans take further steps to make other teams dread a visit to the Chiles Center.
Some schools host meetings for their fans to coordinate original cheers, distraction techniques and to get the students pumped.
This is a level of organization that would not be difficult, especially at a small, private school.
But it may not even be necessary: you yell at the right moments, show disrespect at the proper times and show consistent support for your teams.
We're a Catholic school, right? So let's put the fear of God into those secular, heathen schools, eh? Including Gonzaga. Everyone knows they're Jesuit. We're Holy Cross (Jesu-what?).
Really, it doesn't matter what motivates you as long as it demoralizes the other squad and fuels our team to victory.
Colleges are notorious nests for drunken debauchery, and a sporting event is one of the few environments when such conduct can actually aid the school in a positive manner.
It's a foregone conclusion that not every fan in the arena is going to help the goal of becoming a dreaded home stadium.
There will be fans from the opposition, complacent season ticket-holders and parents with small children.
I'm especially sick of the floor-seat ticket-holders who foolishly purchase tickets in front of our student section, and then entreat us to not scream in their ears or offend their delicate sensibilities.
Those fans are a lost cause.
It is the responsibility of the student section to cut the dead weight and pick up the slack, and drown and rival fan in the Pilot cheers.
At UP, students don't seem to speak out very much.
We're a far cry from being a university where students are tear-gassed for their protests, and I don't really see UP as a cliché political hotbed which campuses sometimes typify.
But maybe UP can be a school where the students take a stand to cheer in their home arena.
A sporting event is a chance for all of the angst and stress of college students to be released into the world as a cavalcade of curses and chants.
A basketball game is an environment where it's socially acceptable to paint yourself in colors, collectively taunt a select group of people, and make a complete fool of yourself.
Our student section should be a full-fledged riot.
In the incredibly unlikely event that there are cars inside of the Chiles Center, they ought to be tipped over, although the school may not approve of such behavior.
The small, claustrophobic atmosphere of the Chiles Center is the perfect venue where Pilot fans should absolutely dominate.
Today the Pilot men's basketball team faces Concordia in an exhibition match that will be their first home game.
The coaches and players have been working hard to make the Pilots a contender in the upcoming years. It's high time the fans reciprocate.
Aaron O'Connell is the Sports Editor of The Beacon.
He can be contacted at
oconnell11@up.edu
