Staff Editorial
Colleges and universities that make their homes in rural or non-major metropolitan areas often struggle to find weekend and nighttime activities for current and prospective students.
St. Bonaventure is not immune to this. In fact, with the Campus Activities Board budget slashed again this semester, this becomes a more difficult issue.
In spite of this, the St. Bonaventure community has found a way to spend the occasional weekend night that doesn’t (necessarily) include alcohol: watch the fall sports teams play on the newly-renovated turf field.
Two Fridays ago, the women’s soccer team defeated Binghamton, 3-1, in the first-ever night home game in St. Bonaventure history.
Saturday, students and parents cheered on the men’s rugby team in a loss to Army to cap off family weekend.
Both events drew over 1,000 spectators. While parents, professors and staff make up part of the crowd, the vast majority of both seemed to be made up of students. Considering the school’s enrollment of less than 1,800, that’s a good portion of the student body.
This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. While not everyone is a die-hard sports fan, many students are happy to attend sporting events and cheer on the school’s teams.
That’s shown every year during basketball season when the stands of the Reilly Center are packed with rabid fans at nearly every home game. What few baseball games occur while students are still at school generally draw decent attendance, so long as the weather is nice.
Other than that, students weren’t given many options when attending sporting events. Weather and visibility issues made attending sporting events difficult.
If nothing else, St. Bonaventure students are professionals at displaying school pride. They took to cheering on outdoor night games like a rambunctious duck to unsuspecting water. Some brought cowbells, vuvuzelas and air horns, while one went so far to bring a large drum. Based on the atmosphere, one would have never guessed St. Bonaventure had never hosted a night game before.
This is a wonderful, if unintended, consequence of the field renovations. In an age when young people constantly look to other sources for entertainment, St. Bonaventure has provided at least a few hours of it per week.
This editorial represents the opinion of The Bona Venture staff.
