Convo must be the sixth man
Student Duke Club and Athletic Marketing push for more fan supportPosted on January 10, 2008
JMU junior forward Kyle Swanston is one of campus’s more recognizable figures.
No? Well surely you’ve seen his giant bright yellow SUV with the Louis Vuitton trim rolling through Bluestone Drive on a daily basis.
Or maybe you’ve seen his towering 6-foot, 7-inch slender body, walking from class to class with a vibrant smile to match his eccentric frizzy hair-do, resembling “The Simpsons” cartoon character Sideshow Bob.
What more students don’t know about Swanston is the energy he brings to the court for the 9-4 Dukes.
Unfortunately for the Spring Hill, Fla. native, he hasn’t had many opportunities in his career to show the student body the fist-pumping moxie that he wants the Convocation Center crowds to join.
“I love it,” Swanston said of the energy a crowd can bring. “I think they feed off me.”
It’s not that Swanston hasn’t seen much of the floor, but in his last two seasons at JMU his team’s combined 12-46 record has merited an average home attendance of just 3,561, in an arena that accommodates 7,156 — not including standing room.
“Just come to the game,” Swanston said he plans to tell students at a rally to be held Friday on the Commons. “They’re the sixth man. Every person helps. Speaking from someone who goes to away games and sees their gyms packed and hears their crowds, it hypes your students up.”
The Student Duke Club, along with JMU Athletic Marketing, is holding the rally in hopes of drawing a big crowd for Saturday night’s game against North Carolina-Wilmington. The game will start at 8 p.m. and is being televised on MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network) — which ironically isn’t carried in Harrisonburg.
“In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, JMU was one of the dominating mid-major teams in the country,” Duke Club faculty advisor Taylor Adkins said. “We [had] some big wins. If we can get the word out, I think we have the best fans in the [Colonial Athletic Association].”
Adkins, 22, finished his undergraduate degree at JMU last Spring and is now a full-time grad-student. He grew up in the Virginia Beach area following Old Dominion, but remembers traveling to Harrisonburg when the Monarchs took on the Dukes.
“The ground was almost moving, the lights almost swaying,” Adkins said. “It would rival some of the best in the country.”
Alyssa Gerlando of Athletic Marketing confirmed other plans to promote Saturday’s game, including free mugs to be handed out to the first 500 students. The department was also working on possibly raffling a flat-screen TV during the game.
“I honestly think that if the team keeps playing the way they do the fan base will come back.” Gerlando said. “There’s a great product on the floor right now and I think that speaks for itself.”
Gerlando added that the goal is for the rally and a mass e-mail to encourage students to not only go to the game, but also get there early to increase their chances of winning the TV.
“We’re trying to drum up support…anyway possible,” Adkins said.
The Dukes themselves will also need to continue playing well for fan support to grow.
They started the season with a 100-88 victory over Siena on Nov. 9 and finished non-conference play with only three losses, including a 112-110 overtime defeat at Seton Hall on Dec. 22.
JMU is 2-1 in the CAA with a win at Northeastern on Dec. 1 and a 62-61 last-second win over Virginia Commonwealth on last Wednesday.
The Dukes lost to a struggling Hofstra team (3-9 overall, 1-2 CAA) on Saturday in New York, but know that a win last night at William & Mary can also help generate buzz for the weekend’s game against the Seahawks. (The Breeze deadline came before the Wednesday’s game finished.)
“If we [lost] Wednesday [we’d] be going into the game going 1-3 in our last four,” junior guard Joe Posey said. “I mean we’ll still have an overall good record but that kind of takes away from it a little bit…especially here it kind of turns into what have you done for me lately.”
