The plight of Pepperdine when it comes to sports involvement has been an issue on campus for quite some time. Even with incentives such as free T-shirts and food does not seem to pep the Pep students enough to get their heads into the game.
Many methods have been implemented – including the current frequent fan program that gives the opportunity to win a trip to Las Vegas – but every option has not been exhausted. Here’s a pitch to the authorities that be: offer convocation credit.
Every organization knows that the best way to get the student body to pay attention to its message or attend the events is to attach convo credit. With it 20-year-old men go to forums about dealing with pregnancy. People who have never heard of a certain speaker will give an hour to hear what he or she has to say for the sacred affirmation of convocation credit.
Of course convocation or chapel is reserved for events with a spiritual emphasis and the application of this for sporting events will not be any different. This is a spiritual matter: a matter of school spirit.
Never again would the various sporting teams feel embarrassed when they play a home game and have only dozens cheering them in the stands. Never again would they have to beg students to come and support their school something that is usually a given in other schools but is nonexistent at Pepperdine.
Part of the lure of colleges is school spirit and a great amount of it comes from a football team. Face it: Pepperdine does not have and never will have one. Pepperdine needs to work with what it has and those are top-tier nationally renowned sports teams better than many if not the best in its division.
Here are the facts: There are seniors and juniors attending Pepperdine who have not attended more that two sporting events. Some have not even made it to one. This dismal reality creates a need to do something to get the ball rolling – or dribbling.
If there is a concern as to whether or not it is healthy or will be effective to create incentives for attending sports games or essentially paying students to be excited for something they should be proud of in the first place think of it as a temporary strategy. Call it “fake it until you make it.” Offer the incentives to get students in the door so they may realize how much they actually enjoy it.
It can be similar to watching the Lakers except he has one of the players in his humanities class. It could be like watching Michael Phelps except she can have lunch with him after the match. Going to a Pepperdine sporting event could be just like seeing Mia Hamm but in this setting he has her in his study group.
Perhaps students will enjoy this so much that they will forget the need for convo credit and attend at their own leisure. It’s all about precedent. If the involvement is established now then future classes will follow suit. It is similar to those old family traditions people follow: they don’t know why or how it started they just do it and they like it. This is exactly what Pepperdine needs to put the “spirit” in “spiritual” when it comes to sports.