Avoid Sports Complacency in the Middle of the Season
Well, we’re halfway through football season and it seems like there is a feeling of limbo settling in all of the fans. Will we rise again? Will we make a bowl game? What will we all do over Christmas break if there isn’t a bowl game to look forward to?
Perhaps there is a slight feeling of regret – maybe you should have gone to a soccer game seeing as the team played their last home games of the season Friday and Saturday.
Maybe you shouldn’t have skipped that one football game and lost your chance to get the early bird student tickets for the LSU game, especially after LSU took a hard loss to Florida.
And maybe you shouldn’t have told all your non-University of Arkansas friends that your team could beat their team to a pulp, and maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t have bought that “BMFP” shirt last year.
But there are other things you should be worrying about, and there are things you should be looking ahead to.
For instance, the Razorback softball team’s fall season ended not too long ago, and boy, they already started showing out. With a few shutouts and a perfect game under their belt, the Razorbacks boosted their confidence for the spring softball season.
But that is still far away.
Then why don’t you make it a point to visit the men’s and women’s basketball teams in November? If you were lucky, you got a nice preview of the teams at Prime time at the Palace, and in the near future you can see those teams in action.
The men’s and women’s teams begin their play in Fayetteville Nov. 2 and Nov. 4, respectively. Most college football fans tend to dribble over to college basketball when they have no more football to watch.
Let’s not forget that the women need some fan presence too. The women have a wide variety of years of experience behind them to make them a well-rounded team. Also, they outperformed the men’s basketball team and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament last year.
Sometimes we act like their games aren’t as exciting or they aren’t as good as the men’s team. How rude is that? The women’s basketball team needs just as much enthusiasm in the crowd as any other team in order to encourage them to show out for their crowd.
We can’t leave out the volleyball team and their winning season. They will be continuing play until Nov. 23, and then their season will be over. Be sure to go to a game and see them shine before time is up.
Of course, there are still multiple football games to look forward to – but only two home games. It may feel like we are in the doldrums, just trying to sail through game weekend to game weekend, never seeing the end and never really seeing the possibility of a spectacular finish.
There are still so many factors up in the air for our team – the amount of injured players as the season progresses, how many more wins we will have and, of course, absolutely no one has forgotten the fact that we need to hire our next head coach.
Just think – we’ve made it halfway through our season, which wasn’t quite as fantastic as we had hoped, and soon, we’ll have the opportunity to look toward a brand new coach, season and football team, and maybe we can finally put the past behind us.
Tamzen Tumlison is a staff writer for The Arkansas Traveler. Her column appears every other Wednesday. Follow the sports section on Twitter @UATravSports.
