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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1980)
M omen’s basketball team lagued with poor attendance THE BATTALION Page 15 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1980 BTryTTBTnnnnrB tv b rrvTmnnra a o~B~g~gT>~B ~o~o~a~<nn» a b B BTgmnm VILLA MARIA ONE HOUR CLEANERS FREE STORAGE ? ONE HOUR DRY CLEANING ON REQUEST ONE DAY LAUNDRY SERVICE By JOHN BRASHER Sports Reporter I’ The place is G. Rollie White Col- Rseum, and the event is a women’s basketball game between powerful, well-known Wayland Baptist and a strong Texas A&M team. The interesting thing about this game wasn’t the score, but rather the attendance. No more than 35 people turned out to see the game and the sad part of it is that it was a common scene throughout the women’s bas ketball season. Wayland Baptist has an enroll ment of 1,300 students and is located in Plainview, Texas. The Flying Queens play their basketball games in the 3,200-seat Hutcherson Center and this past season averaged around 1,500 people at each home game. 1 In comparison, the Lady Aggies he carettj played all of their games in the 7,500- cond ga» JyLynnBk run homti mil start il ■tition wl jeatG. Rollie White Coliseum. With | student enrollment of 31,331, the women’s team only averaged 75-100 {^people a game. r; Eddie Owens, the sports informa tion director at Wayland Baptist, btsaid, “The attendance at our ip'omen’s games has been the best so rj* r fer, as a matter of fact, it’s as good as fly ; the boys.” ' ; Ownes said there are a number of j nf.iMeasons why the attendance is so ia | jj| ate J high. “First, our program has been ere for 32 years and is established, hereas A&M’s is new and is still jetting organized. Secondly, the in- irest in the men’s program has been dow that of the women’s because tirewomen have a reputation of win ning and play some big name schools. Finally, we promote the sport as much as possible. ” I Owens said the school has give aways at the door and tries to let some type of group get in free at each Fame Reo' ^ ame S0 can see w ^ at t ^ ie tearn rs w .|j J has to offer. An example was when s the school sponsored a public schools I I J night. Each teacher and administra- 1 five official in Plainview got in free. , aCe Trying to put a finger on the reson c s j," 0 1 why fan turnout at the Texas A&M )C " ( " ls! women’s basketball games is so low is Jpry difficult, te student.■ ^ ne problem seems to be a lack of ree finis™ I full maraL‘7 ill be (M oth mens'I e: llandn'l 3645; 5K| icgin at Ifl 1 Marathoi olds the the famedl ier this ® ecidediflfi unprecefc emotion and publicity. Trying to I'omote the sport has been a tough job for those who have attempted it. According to Cherri Rapp, head coach of the Texas A&M women’s basketball team, the University didn’t officially go co-ed until 1970, and the women’s athletic programs °T weren’t recognized as part of the Hike adds Athletic department until 1975. ng therasiTrying to promote women’s basket- 5-5924, Efj ball at a school that used to be all male has made the job complicated. ; “I think that in past the sports in- ^1- formation office was biased and Cl fleaned more towards men’s athletics cause it was a men’s school and erything pertained to men. They d what they had to do for the United SjWomen and didn’t bother to do any- age plane- thing extra because they didn’t have i the time. It’s starting to change now sionattbfland it’s slowly improving,” Rapp :nse comsaid. ; man said J Kay Don, the assistant athletic director for women’s athletics said, irces salt "\\' c (j 0 have a problem with the has an t publicity of women’s basketball, but udders 1) eaper t it’s better.” On the other hand, Jerry Arp, the assistant athletic director for promo tion and publicity, says this is no of a problem for the women than it is for the men. “You could have walked across the campus during basketball season and the students couldn’t tell you when the men’s basketball team played,” Arp said. Where is the publicity supposed to come from? “The sports information office has the job of getting the publicity out and this is where the problem lies because there isn’t enough manpow er to handle the enormous work load,” Arp said. The sports information office at Texas A&M consists of one sports information director, one assistant SID, and three students. The Uni versity of Texas, which has the same number of varsity sports as Texas A&M, has two separate staffs to handle the men’s and women’s athle tic programs. Each staff consists of one full-time SID, two assistant SIDs, one full-time secretary and a lot more student help. “I can’t imagine,” Arp said, “any thorough office anywhere working without a secretary. We have 16 sports at A&M and there isn’t the manpower without a secretary. There isn’t the manpower or the hours in the day to cover them (the The sports information office at Texas A&M consists of one sports information director, one assistant SID, and three stu dents. The University of Texas, has two separate staffs, each staff consisting of one full-time SID, two assistant SIDs, one full-time secretary and a lot more student help. sports) thoroughly like we should with the small staff we have. Texas doesn’t have this problem, but A&M does and it’s a very serious problem. It gets to the point to when you’re burning the candle at both ends and pretty soon it’s goin to burn out.” Arp, Rapp and Don all agreed that a possible solution to the problem would be to employ a sports informa tion director, with a full staff, to handle the women’s athletics. As of now, most of the major NCAA DiVU sion I universities have this type of setup, which consists of a separate SID for both men’s and women’s athletics. Rapp said she would like to see this system installed at Texas A&M because it will take a lot of the bur den off the coaches, and women’s athletics would be publicized more. “Sometimes I have to do the public ity for our basketball team although I really don’t have the time for it be cause of my other duties.” Marvin Tate, the athletic director at Texas A&M, said he doesn’t feel the university needs an SID for women’s athletics at this time. “We need to do a better job with the people we already have,” he said. Tate continued to say that if the Unversity had an unlimited amount of money to spend, the university would possibly look into it. “With the limited amount of money we have now,” he said, “we need to direct our attention to other areas such as salaries and scholar ships.” Tate explained that at the Univer sity of Texas, the budget for women is over $1 million and only $225,000 of the money is donated by the athle tic program. At Texas A&M, the women’s program receives around $750,000 from men’s athletics and the sport which pays for all of the athletic programs at the University is football. “The problem comes from the fact that people really don’t understand the workload that is put on the SID, ” Arp said. “The lack of knowledge that our superiors have with what goes on in the sports information office is the number one hindrance that will keep us from having a women’s SID.” Tate said the athletic program will hire a secretary in September for the sports imformation office to ease some of the workload, but hiring a complete sports information staff was out of the question. Another problem the women’s team faces is they aren’t as popular as the men’s programs and the people aren’t interested because football dominates every sport in Texas. “Our women understand they’re not going to take the campus be storm, Arp said. “Women’s basket ball just isn’t as popular as be men’s program right now. It’s going to take time. Let’s face it, in Texas, football is the basic sport. We even have a tough time selling men’s basketball. ” One university which isn’t faced with this problem is Old Dominion, a university with 14,000 students lo cated Norfolk, Va. The Lady Monarchs play their games in a 5,000-seat facility and De bbie Harmison, the assistant SID, said the gym was sold out three times this season and averaged around 3,200 people at each game. Harmison feels that 75 percent of their fan turn-out is credited to hav ing a good team. “Last season, we had 10,270 peo ple show up to see the Soviet Union women’s team play our team which was the No. 1 team in the nation, she said. “Ticket sales were so great, we had to move the game to another arena.” Harmison gave several reasons why their attendance is high. “We do some promotion and we also expose our players to the media all the time. We are also successful because there aren’t any pro teams in our immedi ate area, we are the only Division I school in our area, and this part of the country is basketball-oriented and not football-oriented. ” Finally, the women’s basketball team has a problem with getting media recognition. “A lot has to do with the fact that the news media “really doesn’t know how many people are interested in women sports, Rapp said. “If enough people are interested and let the media know it, then the media will probably get out and cover it more. ’’ Harry Gillam, station manager at KBTX-TV, said he didn’t have the manpower to cover everything. Don said she is very disappointed with The Battalion because she feels it’s very poor in the coverage of women’s athletics. But once again, the problem is manpower. Mike Burrichter, sports editor of The Battalion, said, “I agree that we’ve been lacking in covering women’s athletics but we don’t have the people to get out and cover ev erything like we should. We have an extremely small sports staff that in cludes myself and two others and at the same time, we are full-time stu dents.” One thing is certain: the women’s basketball teeam doesn’t stand Two Aggies ran in Boston hiletWfiP 116 Aggie runner finished the ounf» i; ® oston Marathon Monday, but the other dropped out after 21 miles. ■■■^l|Charles Blumentritt, a 43-year- old employee of the Texas Transpor- n _ rs .. Ation Institute, finished in 3:25, an ExCL.i'* ),n pared to his best previous time BUT WE ( of 3; 10. SSES wU ITinkor Murray, a graduate stu- 1EMS, w; dent in physical education, had sto- 4acli cramps and stopped shortly af- ST A FE* Heartbreak Hill, the last of four RTHOFfi'!^ 65 near the end of the course, 'ill Rodgers of Boston won the b for the third straight time, run- g a relatively slow 2:12:11. Blumentritt said the race was slowed by the 75-degree tempera tures. Most runners consider any thing warmer than 50 degrees as un comfortable marathoning condi tions. WEDNESDAY Rock & Roll Night No Cover 2 for 1 till 10 p.m. Bring a rock and get a free drink No Boulders please ONLY AT THE STUDIO 1401 FM 2818 Come on out to the Doux Chene Complex! ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Manor East Mall * proudly presents Harriet’s °-°O o an opportunity to meet the stars of daytime TV’s “All My Children” ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ In Person/Center Stage/In the Mall Saturday/April 26 11 a.m.-2 p.m. find it all at alone. Women’s softball, track, swimming and tennis along with men’s baseball, swimming, track, tennis and basketball are all suffering from low attendance. No one really knows the answer to the problem or how to solve it. In this case, only time can tell. ALTERATIONS 710 VILA MARIA RD. 822-3937 O o fOPOOQOOOQO 0-fl- QOQQflflflflQflflflfl fl-ft-ft-g » W Battalion Classifieds Call 845-2611 “I think that in past the sports information office was biased and leaned more towards men’s athletics because it was a men’s school and everything pertained to men,” Cherri Rapp, Texas A&M women’s head basketball coach. GET IN THE S-W-l-N-G FOR TENNIS NOW!!! W7200 Series 01 Q QC Sweat Pant $ I O ■ 5IO Men’s all purpose pant in 65% acrylic/35% cotton, features covered elastic waistband, back patch pocket, coordinating rib knit leg stripes and elastic leg cuffs. Sizes S-M-L-XL Colors: W7210 Navy with red & white trim W7229 Grey with royal, red & grey stripes W7500 Series V-Neck Short Sleevah.f 4 r*C Sweatshirt 1 I .510 Men’s V-neck sweatshirt in 65% acrylic/35% cotton, features stripe on shoulders and sleeves. 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