COLUMN: Few went to meet, compete with athletes
Would you like to meet the star basketball player that won the slam dunk contest at Hoops Fest? What about your favorite football player? Or maybe you want to meet someone from the girl’s soccer team or the gymnastics team.
Well, last Thursday you could have had the chance to meet those athletes you always wanted to.
You could have had the opportunity to have a free-throw contest with one of the best shooters from the basketball team.
You could have clocked the speed of your fastball with a pitcher from the baseball club.
If you were lucky, the water polo team could have challenged you to a tug-of-war.
There were athletes from the football, baseball, water polo, track and field, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer, gymnastics and softball teams.
More than 60 athletes participated. For this time (and probably only this time) there was more athlete support than there was student support.
The reason for lack of participation from the student side could be blamed on a number of things.
They tried advertising with signs around campus, but the night before “Challenge the Athlete” the signs were vandalized and torn down.
They also tried running an ad in the newspaper and because of some miscommunication that ad wasn’t run.
So there was hardly any advertising, and being on a rainy Thursday night could possibly be another strong factor.
The point of this activity was to make the athletes less famous and more like just a person.
It gave students the chance to meet and get to know their favorite athletes, as well as giving them the chance to see that the athletes are students just like everybody else and like to have fun just like everybody else.
Tyler Olsen, vice president of athletics, was in charge of the event. Olsen said he was a little disappointed by the lack of student participation, but it was the first year and it’s hard to get things like that going.
He is planning on doing another one, not this year but hopefully getting one together next year, with better advertising so they can get more people there to “Challenge the Athlete.”
Kevin Austin is a sophomore majoring in communications. Comments can be sent to kcaustin@cc.usu.edu.