By 
By: JIM IRIZARRY
Staff Writer/Copy Editor
jcirizar@iusb.edu
As I write this, the north side of Chicago is packed with Cubs fans. They are ecstatic. They are beside themselves. They honestly never thought they would see their team in the World Series in their lifetime.
I know there are plenty of Cubs fans at IU South Bend. I’ve seen a lot of new Cubs hats and shirts walking around campus lately. Quick side note, Cubs fans: you look like bandwagon Cubs fans with your new hats. Throw your hat in the mud, then run it under some water to beat it up a little, would you?
With everybody so happy to show how much they bleed Cubbie blue, it makes me wonder when anyone, student or faculty, is going to show pride like that for this school.
I’m not saying that everybody needs to go buck wild on Mishawaka Avenue after the women’s volleyball team takes a doubleheader. I don’t want to deal with people possibly flipping over my car. Plus, if any of you caused significant harm to China House, I WOULD LOSE IT.
Let’s just call it like it is. School spirit here sucks. As far as I can tell, it’s always sucked and it will continue to suck. I bet that most of you reading this have begun nodding your heads in agreement and are starting to turn the page. To be honest, I can’t say that I blame you.
As someone who started his college career many, many, MANY moons ago at Ball State, I can say, without hesitation, that I thought Ball State had the worst college atmosphere. Then, I came here. My fellow students, you make Ball State look like New Year’s Eve in Times Square in regards to spirit.
I have just one question: Why? Why is it that when someone asks you where you go to school, you sheepishly mumble “IUSB,” and look away? Why is it you can go to any sporting event at the Student Activities Center and have to worry about disturbing people who are studying in the stands? Go ahead and laugh about that last one, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it makes me sad to think about.
I have a couple of ideas as to why the IUSB community hides their pride. First, this place has a massive inferiority complex about itself simply because it’s not Notre Dame and it’s not Bloomington.
It’s too bad, because if you actually bother to apply yourself and not rely on others to spoon feed you everything, you can get just as good of an education here as you do up the road or down state. Sure, it took actually coming here to realize that it’s not “the high school after high school” that some make it out to be, but the sooner you realize it, the better off you’ll be.
Another reason has to be the fact that, yes, almost nobody lives on campus. The people at Titan Productions and every other club and athletic team here really do have their work cut out for them trying to get people to come back to campus once classes are done for the day.
However, there must be a better way to get a piece of that student activity fee money than hosting the one millionth movie night of the month. Sure, it’s cinema that makes a statement, but does anybody really care? There must be one enterprising person out there who can help.
It’s sad that school spirit is as low as it is, because it doesn’t take much to see someone busting his or her hump to get the word out about something. There’s promotional signage all over this campus; from getting homework help to someone’s band playing somewhere nearby and everything in between.
It also doesn’t take much to go into one of these club meetings or sporting events and see that you’re one of seven people in the room. I think back to the SGA debates back in the spring and, aside from various candidates, there were maybe four people in the room who were there because they were interested in finding out who stood for what.
I know that I haven’t exactly offered up any suggestions on how to improve school spirit. I also know that something can and should be done. It probably just hasn’t been thought of yet. I wouldn’t mind being in some brainstorming sessions. Then again, that would require people to care.
