It is a lovely turn of events that I am able to cover a football team in Ithaca that has had its ups and downs over the two years I've been on the beat for The Ithacan. I will be covering an NCAA Tournament game for a team that has a decent chance of making a run to at least the Round of 16. I also covered two Cortaca Jug games.
Those two games have been the amongst most dramatic games I have covered in any sport and credit goes to both teams for playing both games tremendously. I also want to give respect to Fran Elia and the Cortland State Sports Info Department for showing class and professionalism, he sets an example that the rest of the University unfortunately does not follow.
80 people were arrested in Cortland after 'celebrations' went too far and made us wonder what is the definition of a riot. I put 'celebrations' in quotations because of the new mantra that exists around colleges – Ithaca is guilty of this too but not nearly as much – 'win or lose, we still booze.' What happened on Cortland's streets was bound to happen regardless of the result of the game.
Don't get me wrong, I was looking forward to last weekend just as much as anyone else was. However, the reason we look forward to these weekends has little to do with the event they are centered on. In the past decade, Cortaca attendance has dropped from 12,620 at Butterfield Stadium in 2001 to 6500 last Saturday. Part of the reason this has happened is because Cortland State fans have stopped travelling.
It is standard operating procedure for Ithaca to use temporary bleachers on the opposite half of the field to accomodate all travel needs. The way things are going, it may be a smart move for facilities to recycle those bleachers for scrap. Red Dragon fans have stopped travelling to the game because of, ironically, ICTV. ICTV — aided by a webstream and Time Warner Cable syndicating the broadcast —set a record number of viewers for their Cortaca broadcast. This allows for bars to open early and show the game. In Cortland, bars were open at 8 a.m. with a $25 cover. They were packed in an hour.
That is the environment in Cortland now. The game itself has become second-fiddle to the event. The event is a party weekend that is circled on our calendars and we take pride in it. We ran a story celebrating the Cortical and NYCortaca parties that got a lot of play, even a mention from Bomber Head Coach Mike Welch. My preview of the game itself, not nearly as much buzz.
Cortland and Ithaca have opposite cultures and quite frankly, winning the Cortaca Jug means more to each student there than to each student here. Cortland State is a school that has athletics at the forefront of its student life while Cortaca may be the only instance that a sports are the big deal on campus here. In a younger life, I salivated to be at a school like Cortland because I wanted to turn up, be at football games, have a sign featured on College Gameday etc. Now that I see that for every Saturday, there is a Monday.
Cortland State students are spending Monday still not fully recovered from the weekend, Cortland residents clean up and Cortland State's president is trying to save face. All after a season-defining win. This is going to be the future of Cortaca and most people do not seem to mind. The straws are building on the camel's back and I fear that as long as Cortaca remains about the party than the game, the straw that breaks the camel's back will fall.
Then regardless of who wins and regardless of who boozes, everyone loses.
No comments:
Post a Comment