Really... Where are all the students?

[HaulingBull Sucks]

I ask myself where all the caual usf student fans are. All i can think about is the huge line for UCF tickets that doubled back through the MC with students who wanted tickets. While i am fully aware its an excuse maybe students feel disenfranchised.

We have A LOT of students that like to attend things.  In real life... 8,000 to 10,000 regular students is A LOT.  But, when you think about it... 4,000 out of 43,000 isn't so great.

Sg only gave out 1,200 or so tickets... which is amazing attendance for an away game (best ever in USF history).  But it was in our backyard... an hour drive... against a team most people say we hate.  We SHOULD get more than we did!

Everything will "come with time."  BUT, I hope efforts by SG, student affairs, athletics, etc speed it up a bit.

To be fair one must look at the actual number of fulltime students on the Tampa campus which is not anywhere near 43,000.  There also many  fulltime USF students who are working fulltime or near fulltime jobs and therefore unlikely to have the time to attend many football games or other campus activities.  I believe that USF has more of these students than many universities.

While the number of people who traveled to the UCF game may have been a record for USF. It  was a poor turnout for a game just an hour away...Forget the excuse about who the  opponent was...it goes to show the true interest in USF football...real fans wouldn't miss a game that close to home.  While there are some people who can attend a particular game for reasons beyond their control, however 75 to 80 percent do not.

One must also face the fact that many people (students or otherwise) have little to no interest in attending football or other sporting events..  What pecentage of the Tampa Bay population is knocking down the doors to buy season tickets to the Bucs, the Rays, or the Lightning?

Fine...

System Wide: 43,885

Tampa Campus: 37,645

If you want to really get into it... here is the link for all of the numbers: http://usfweb2.usf.edu/infomart/eprofiles/currentprofile/eProfilesUSFSystem.htm

EITHER way... we should get more than 20,000 students on homecoming... at least

Where does one find the number of traditional fulltime students?

[lolviking]

Quips about education are cute, but in reality i dislike anyone who allowed the UCF ticket debacle. I've heard everything from "We didn't know there would be so much intrest", "we meant for the tickets to go to that group", "you could have camped out", "everyone heard about it at the same time", to "the tickets were never an entitlement". The cronyism and nepotism runs deep and wide in SG. So we get a well funded organization which serves the special intrest they represent.

This is not to say there aren't people in the organization that don't do great and wonderful things for USF athletics, football, student athletes, fans, and the student body. But when i was explained why the tickets went mostly to a particular group i think someone actually mentioned Reaganomics.

Basicly from student to representative im just reminding you that SG serves students, not do favors or make jokes about entitlements.The money SG handles is no joke.  

If SG wants to atract students, stop ignoring them in favor of groups who are easy to pander to.

[outrunner]

Quips about education are cute, but in reality i dislike anyone who allowed the UCF ticket debacle. I've heard everything from "We didn't know there would be so much intrest", "we meant for the tickets to go to that group", "you could have camped out", "everyone heard about it at the same time", to "the tickets were never an entitlement". The cronyism and nepotism runs deep and wide in SG. So we get a well funded organization which serves the special intrest they represent.

This is not to say there aren't people in the organization that don't do great and wonderful things for USF athletics, football, student athletes, fans, and the student body. But when i was explained why the tickets went mostly to a particular group i think someone actually mentioned Reaganomics.

Basicly from student to representative im just reminding you that SG serves students, not do favors or make jokes about entitlements.The money SG handles is no joke.  

If SG wants to atract students, stop ignoring them in favor of groups who are easy to pander to.

I think you're in the wrong place for this sort of thing. This is about attracting students to USF athletic events, not bashing SG. (If you don't like what happened or how things are run, SG meets Tuesday nights at 7:00pm. Also think about running for office.)

[lolviking]

Your right. But i believe if you asked if  "i knew what i was talking about".

[USF03]

I'll put it to you stright from the office.  I have worked in SG for 2 years, first as the Academic Affairs Director and this year as the External Affairs Director (lobbyist).  

Everyone in SG understands the importance of the $9.3 million we "control."  It gets spent well.  Yes, mistakes happen all the time.  The UCF tickets did not go as well as we wished.  Although, our main mission WAS to get as many students as possible to the away game.  We were successful, as UCF had the highest away game attendance, and it was pretty fun!  It was a quota thing.  We run all kinds of give aways and events with little turnout.  For once, A LOT of people did want the service.  

In the end... we learned from the mistake.  The bowl trip travel packages were limited to 4 per person (4 to a room).  Athletics was nice enough to pay for the tickets this time around, and they had a great plan that will be used again if we ever do it again.

They origionally wanted to use the tickets to drive organization recruitment (not just greek, but all orgs).  That is why organizations and greeks got wind of it early.  Not to mention, they are organized groups who are involved everywhere.  Of course it was easy for them to do what they did!

My point.  Don't judge everything SG does on a messed up, but somewhat successful project.  Those students who serve you do much more than you think.  Everything from the computer lab clerk to the lobbyists like myself to the comptrollers who sort and handle the $9.3.  

My question is... how do you know cronyism and nepotism run deep in SG?  Have you ever been around the office, or are you taking the Oracle's word for it?  I agree, cronyism is present to a degree.  It is present everywhere.  Have you ever done something to help a friend?  I bet you have!  You will always remember someone you know or a friend before someone you don't know.  That doesn't mean we make decisions based only on those friendships.  AND, you are right, you should never make "big decisions" based on cronyism.  

I am involved in our top leadership and, to my knowledge, those decisions are not based on cronyism.

The only objectives for the UCF tickets, for example, were:

1) to get as many students to travel as possible (college experiance)

2) to install a want to travel and attend athletic events which will assist in the building of our athletic program (the quota).  

Both of those were met.  Now that we know that students will jump on something like that... like I said above, we will use a better system.

If you notice... the objective was not to get as many greeks to the game.  Never was.  That would have been cronyism.  The objective was to BnS (Butts n Seats).

[USF03]

Quips about education are cute, but in reality i dislike anyone who allowed the UCF ticket debacle. I've heard everything from "We didn't know there would be so much intrest", "we meant for the tickets to go to that group", "you could have camped out", "everyone heard about it at the same time", to "the tickets were never an entitlement". The cronyism and nepotism runs deep and wide in SG. So we get a well funded organization which serves the special intrest they represent.

This is not to say there aren't people in the organization that don't do great and wonderful things for USF athletics, football, student athletes, fans, and the student body. But when i was explained why the tickets went mostly to a particular group i think someone actually mentioned Reaganomics.

Basicly from student to representative im just reminding you that SG serves students, not do favors or make jokes about entitlements.The money SG handles is no joke.  

If SG wants to atract students, stop ignoring them in favor of groups who are easy to pander to.

I think you're in the wrong place for this sort of thing. This is about attracting students to USF athletic events, not bashing SG. (If you don't like what happened or how things are run, SG meets Tuesday nights at 7:00pm. Also think about running for office.)

Elections are coming up.  Go to http://www.sg.usf.edu for an application.  

[USF03]

Where does one find the number of traditional fulltime students?

I'm not sure.  I have the figures somewhere.

I'll be in my office tomorrow, I'll see if I can find them.

You see, this would be cronyism.  I promise you I'll clock out while looking for them!  

[lolviking]

You know i could go on an on about how much this was simply the exec branch help Aguire, or how i wanted to ask Harison questions and he had to leave the room aguire was in. Thats not cronyism is it? Knowing of a student A&S funded idea before students then taking adavntage of it is it? and he was not the only one and i agree with you, for the most part. But the one thing i will remind you is SG represents students.  

As far as a better system, even if i were to give SG the benefit of the doubt, SG refused to change procedure for the second day which showed they were aware was what happeing.

As far as the organization bs, was that the feminist org you were hoping for? what organizations where you hoping for other than greeks?

As far as the oracle you say one thing they print it and then SG says they got it wrong twice! How does the oracle staff sleep at night changing facts to pull a fast one on those they inform.

I apriciate your last comment but you might want to ask those who proposed it. Or were you told somthing else?

[BULLheaded]

I would imagine the number from USF comes from card-swipes. The number in the student section or hanging out at the end-zone could be much larger, given that there is probably a quantity of non-students who prefer that environ.  

Here is what I find problematic with this explanation, according to the list here are the past two years attendence:

2005 - 7,527

2006 - 4,773

To me it is obvious that the section was much better attended this year then last yet it shows a drop of nearly 3,000 students (almost in half) So then we have to assume we all of a sudden got 3,000+ non students (nearly the turnout of the students themselves) into that section? I just find that really hard to believe....a mistake in reporting one of those two years seems a much more plausable explanation.

[Guest r_to_the_izzo]

Where are all the students? Well one I think that number is about 2K too low.

And 2? About twice as many stay outside and tailgate than come in. If we could convince those certain, orginizations that have the same name as an ancient European country, to actually come in to the game I think we could easily get another 2-4K students.