Spring Break
Dave's place - Support for soccer is missing
David Cordill
Issue date: 10/27/08 Section: Sports
The mother of one of the members of UMKC men's soccer team pulled me aside just before the Kangaroos kicked off against Oral Roberts University last Saturday.
Looking across the pitch at the empty stands on the east side of Bourke Field she expressed dismay at the small crowd turnout.
"It's Senior Day," she said.
She wondered aloud where all UMKC's student support was, especially on an afternoon where she would join her husband to participate in a halftime ceremony honoring her son and his fellow seniors.
After briefly surveying the situation, I too began to speculate why UMKC's students were staying away.
I took my usual roving position on the asphalt drives behind the team benches, and looked across the pitch to count the fans in the east stands.
There were fifteen in all, and considering the reactions among a small pocket of them who rose to cheer during ORU's starting lineup, about a third of them were for the other team.
On my side of the field it was more densely populated, but even then there were only about 50 people there at best.
And most of these people were staunch UMKC alumni game regulars, UMKC student athletes, UMKC Athletics Department staff, and the parents of UMKC soccer players.
The attendance figure for the match was 185, according to the official post-game scoresheet. But I'm not sure if there were that many people within a one-mile radius of the stadium, and that includes the players and game officials participating in the match. Things weren't much better the week before.
Only 124 showed up for UMKC's match against the University of Central Arkansas the previous Saturday. And although the Kangaroos did draw 455 fans for their annual match against Rockhurst University, a considerable amount of those people were rooting for the Hawks, as they share their home field with UMKC.
But three weeks ago, 315 rowdy supporters filed into the stands for the Kangaroos' homecoming game with IUPUI.
Looking across the pitch at the empty stands on the east side of Bourke Field she expressed dismay at the small crowd turnout.
"It's Senior Day," she said.
She wondered aloud where all UMKC's student support was, especially on an afternoon where she would join her husband to participate in a halftime ceremony honoring her son and his fellow seniors.
After briefly surveying the situation, I too began to speculate why UMKC's students were staying away.
I took my usual roving position on the asphalt drives behind the team benches, and looked across the pitch to count the fans in the east stands.
There were fifteen in all, and considering the reactions among a small pocket of them who rose to cheer during ORU's starting lineup, about a third of them were for the other team.
On my side of the field it was more densely populated, but even then there were only about 50 people there at best.
And most of these people were staunch UMKC alumni game regulars, UMKC student athletes, UMKC Athletics Department staff, and the parents of UMKC soccer players.
The attendance figure for the match was 185, according to the official post-game scoresheet. But I'm not sure if there were that many people within a one-mile radius of the stadium, and that includes the players and game officials participating in the match. Things weren't much better the week before.
Only 124 showed up for UMKC's match against the University of Central Arkansas the previous Saturday. And although the Kangaroos did draw 455 fans for their annual match against Rockhurst University, a considerable amount of those people were rooting for the Hawks, as they share their home field with UMKC.
But three weeks ago, 315 rowdy supporters filed into the stands for the Kangaroos' homecoming game with IUPUI.
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