I won’t lie, I’m a huge sports fan. Hockey, tennis, volleyball, any sport you can think of I’ve probably watched it at some point in my life. So when I went to my first UT athletics event two years ago, a soccer game with some of my roommates, I was surprised to see that very few people actually showed up. The same was when I went to a women’s volleyball game, women’s basketball game, and even club hockey. I was shocked; our teams (for the most part) are great here at UT, usually making it to the Sunshine State Conference semifinals, finals, or even in the running for national championships (and we’ve won quite a few). The only time I ever saw a packed UT game was freshman year (2020 before COVID-19) when the baseball team had their home opener after winning a national championship.
It was even more shocking to learn that we used to have a marching band that would play at games, and even a homecoming week that celebrated UT with a week full of fun events; then at the end, everyone would turn out for the big basketball game.
So what’s with the lack of fans and school spirit?
I believe that not having a football team is honestly one of the greatest reasons why UT lacks school spirit. We used to have a Division 1 team, but in the 1970s, the team disbanded for financial reasons. With this, we lost school chants and songs, reasons to go to sporting events, an active marching band, and overall enthusiasm for UT. It pains me a little to see the displays we have in the library of old cheer and marching band uniforms and pictures of students decked out in Spartan apparel at football games, thinking, “wow, this could be us now.”
Even though we most likely won’t get a football team back at UT, it is good to know that every UT athletics event is free, yes you heard correctly, free (!!!), for every University of Tampa student, and usually, there are t-shirt giveaways and other free things at the games. This alone should be an incentive for some students to go. I mean, who doesn’t love free things? This provides students, faculty, and staff a great opportunity to support our school at no cost! Plus, you’ll see some great athleticism at the games.
I think it is time we reinstate our pride in UT and start showing up to support our classmates! Hopefully one day UT will have students who wear their Spartan Spirit on their sleeves, but for now, we can only try to change the narrative and continue to support our friends, classmates, and school as much as possible.