Greater student support of athletic programs is key

Why is it that the Daily Trojan is so obsessed with the “death” of USC football? Every week it seems a writer takes a shot with an article about “how bad the team is” or how “it will never be as good as it was before.” Rather than recognize that the university has long ignored its “other” sports and athletes and is now giving them all their rightful place alongside its football team, the Daily Trojan takes the stand that the athletic department is trying to divert our attention away from our now “failing” football program by using our Olympic athletes as a smoke screen.

If you want to talk about respect for what our athletes do and have done, why not start by looking in the mirror? When the Daily Trojan chooses to say that the athletic department’s campaign to acknowledge and honor USC’s rich tradition of Olympic success is just another way to take attention away from a potentially bad football season, this takes a shot at a football team that has yet to play a single game this season.

It takes away everything that our Olympians have accomplished in their respective sports and events. USC’s Olympic athletes have represented their respective countries beyond anything that a football player can do.

Not to take anything away from one amazing group of athletes, but when you are an Olympian, you represent an entire country and not just a single school.

If you ask me, the campaign to honor our Olympic athletes is long overdue, and I — in spite of my obsessive loyalty to our football team — support it wholeheartedly. Perhaps this is the attitude that is missing on our campus. So many students are looking to get behind the latest thing. It is a generational thing, I guess.

To me, the issue is not about the athletic department sending out emails about buying football tickets, it is about the fact that many of our students could really care less about anything bigger or other than themselves. Yes, there was a time when tickets to football games were hard to come by, and ’SC students, alumni and fans alike lived and died by what the Trojans did on Saturdays — those times were called the ’70s.

Today’s “fans,” if you can even call them that, are more interested in tailgating than in touchdowns. You want to know where all the missing students are on game days? Look on campus or on the front lawns of the houses on The Row.

If you really want to increase and improve the support for our football team, then you have to acknowledge that we must do the same for all of our teams. How about focusing on articles that showcase the positive aspects of our athletic programs and the potential accomplishments of our teams and individual athletes?

Let’s start a student-led campaign to pledge our support for all sports, starting with one of our most important. Let’s create a rallying cry — something to bring out both our students’ anger and optimism.

If we refer to this university as the Trojan Family, then don’t you think there is something wrong with only cheering for one child when she competes and ignoring the other when he competes? What about taking the stand that one child’s championship is just a parent’s way of covering up for another child’s subpar season?

Martin jarequi

Graduate student, Rossier School of Education