Here’s a new tradition for athletics

Athletics in need of new tradition

Tonight around 10 p.m. students can congregate in individual apartments, houses or anywhere else with cable connection to watch the ESPN telecast of the Utah State/Nevada men’s basketball game. While intimate groups of fans serve some purpose, why not have a large gathering of students who can watch the game together?

The Spectrum has four screens on which the game could be shown. A projector could also feed the game to a large number of students in the USU Ballroom.

The Nevada athletics site has had a countdown to the game for the past week. It’s a big game, so why students are having to huddle together in small groups to enjoy a game we would all be at had it been played in the Spectrum is beyond us.

We encourage those in charge of student athletic events to consider instituting a new tradition – making away games that are nationally broadcast available for all students to watch somewhere on campus. Even though the first round of the NCAA Tournament takes place the week of Spring Break, a place to watch away games as a large student body would increase the interest in athletics.

True, the WAC now has every basketball game televised over the Internet using the home radio feed and the big screen cameras, so anyone with a cable or high speed internet connection has access to the games. But making them available to students to provide a game-like environment makes more sense when it comes to keeping the Aggie basketball tradition alive.