The Sound of Silence - AKA The UWM Panther Arena

Hello last place, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I sat alone
Beside the court down on Kilbourn,
'Neath the halo of LED lamps,
I remember when we were still champs
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Twenty-five people, maybe more
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing checks that AD’s never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I,
"You do not know, losing like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the AD god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said,
"The words of the prophets are written on the Facebook walls
And Twitter scrawls”
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence

Keep working on it, but hahahaha

If only this was funny. Usually when a new coach comes into a program there is a burst of enthusiasm resulting in elevated ticket sales and attendance. If the team performs well in the first year, attendance is maintained or even improved in the second year. If it does poorly, attendance drops off in year two, sometimes dramatically.

Now how do we fit this year's debacle into this paradigm? Notwithstanding the new coach (and I'll keep saying it -- by all accounts a good guy); notwithstanding all the improvements to the Arena -- there was utterly no "burst of enthusiasm." Instead of a ticket sale increase and improved attendance over last year, there has been an obvious drop in sales and an even more precipitous and alarming drop in actual attendance. It is a reasonably good bet that there are several D3 programs in the state of Wisconsin that now draw equivalent or better crowds than our D1 team!!

What accounts for this is simple: the spectacularly bad judgment and execution underlying both the decision to fire Coach Jeter one year before his contract termed (and jettison our best, most experienced players), and the comically inept hiring "process" for our new coach. This sent an irrefutable message to our fan base that the program would continue to be grotesquely mismanaged and under-supported by our administration. Message received.

Now what do you suppose will happen next year from an attendance standpoint? The best case scenario for this year's team is that it may barely escape the basement of the worst Horizon League ever. I'm sure this is not a function of the character or commitment of our players or even the good intentions of our new staff. It is simply a very undertalented team playing for very inexperienced coaches.

So whereas this year we are seeing crowds of hundreds, what will we see next year? Scores? Dozens? Hey, I've got an idea -- free beer!

If you had drawn up a way to more dramatically injure our program, you could not have done it better. Or I suppose it might be more accurate to say, worse.