@esplanade91 You are an idiot. If you actually read what the "*** clown" said, he said they want to change the name and get the student section more full. I'm guessing you were a stansbury homer.
Yes, I'm a Stans homer because I hate that a group named after him is trying to come back. You caught me.
yes!! lets squash this everyone knows that a group of crazy fans yelling and acting a fool is not tolerated at a sporting event. Reminds me of that group called the...Cameron...Crazies I think.**
- Blue Hairs
I know this group has a reputation for being a bunch a idiots but there is no reason not to try it again and put a little more effort into getting quality participation. Rick's Rowdies 2
I'm all for a student group. But let's be realistic here. Why don't they put chairs in the student section of football games? The same thing would happen (people would sit). Probably has a little to do with them wanting to stuff as many students in as possible and spend 0 money on students, but you can't tell me that the reason 99% of college football stadiums have bleachers for students for that reason. The niceness of The Hump killed the atmosphere.
Not only did they facilitate sitting, they simultaneously
split the student section and moved them to an irrelevant spot in the coliseum. If you have to split it, make one courtside with limited seating and make it first come first serve with wristbands or something. That is an organic way to make a "Rick's Rowdies-esk" group.
Cameron's Crazies is awesome, but so is the 12th man at A&M. You can't just take an amazing part of one college and just say "hey, we're doing that now"... If you wanted to do something like create a group that gets students to go around campus advertising basketball games and stuff and give it a name, name it after the school or arena, not a coach. That's what was awesome about The Dude's. It basically just got guys to show up and it was named after the stadium. Not a coach that could likely leave in a couple of years. Duke has the greatest coach of all time and they're not named K's Crazies.
My last point: Whether you like it or not or whether it's fair or not, student involvement comes with success. Even this
*** hat (dick) from Rick's Rowdies admitted it was only awesome from 2001-2004.
Some easy examples for you: The New Orleans Saints were for sale in 2004 because they sucked awfully and no one went to games. They're regularly a top 10 team now and it has the highest % of ticket sales of all 32 teams.
No one bought MSU merchandise or attended football games from 2001-2008, which also correlates with the worst years in school history for football. We started winning games and have received some pretty good endorsement deals and have sold out every game since.
MSU baseball struggled post-2007 to really last year, and that's a sport generally where we have the most diehard support. This is the first time in my 4 years I've seen people going to the games religiously, and no one can sit here and tell me that us being ranked in the top 15 the whole year didn't have anything to do with setting an attendance record this year.
2012-2013 MSU basketball was the worst team the school has
ever fielded. Ever. People don't care if they give 100% effort because they should give 100%. That's their job. Of course no one wanted to go to games. Rick's Rowdies, The Humpers, Ray's Gay's, Bailey Howell's Homies, or any other group isn't going to change that. They waited what, 3 years before they implemented The Dudes? It was opportune because it was the first pretty good year in a while.
Whether it's fair or not, people aren't going to the games because the team sucks. It's Ray's job to go out and get some decent players and get students motivated to go to games through success on the court and it's the marketing department's job to get people to go to the games regardless until then by giving out iPad's and dumb ****... before you say "yeah, by starting a student group"... my next point...
It has to be organic and just happen. Anytime you put structure to a group, the creativity/novelty dies. How in the hell do you think the left field lounge has lasted this long? It's organic. No one has ever tried to structure or make it fit a mold/system. It just developed.
The students need to take a page out of the veterans play book. Show up, plan to act an ***, and bring booze. It's really that easy. Two things helped when I was at State 1) We won and 2) nobody brought props. We just came to have a good time and yell. You raced for seats and if you didn't want to stand you sat in the upper ring.
... Rick's Rowdies* (or whatever the name you give it) won't catch on until you have a good team. It has to happen organically. If the marketing department started a group for next year's team it would die halfway through the season and be forever associated with another bad team. Wait till the team is good and students start coming to games because they want to come to games and then capture their excitement in a bottle by getting them to sign up for The Dawg Pound or whatever you name it. That's how you get 200+ kids going crazy in an awesome way every great matchup of the season.
Again, whether it's fair or not, that's how it is. Putting 10 guys in maroon wigs, sleeveless shirts, and Party City referee Halloween costumes who chant "Hey" the whole game is and always will be a bad thing.
Before anyone gives me crap about being a bad fan, I'm one of the few MSU fans who can say they went to every home game this season. The student section was horrible, but had they unified the sections after they realized no one was coming it would have been a pretty decent size. Even further, most students went and just sat courtside because no one was stopping them. The greatest student section of the whole year was when Ray went and got kids to come and they gave away free t-shirts... and they weren't allowing students to sit just anywhere they wanted. Do this until the right time. It worked. No need for more annoying referees in sunglasses.