<p>is there school pride....i keep hearing kids dont go to football gamess...but they do go to hockey games...do the kids have a ton of pride and or spirit about miami university? are the football games empty...what about tailgating?</p>
<p>Current students would answer this best however, from an alumni perspective, there sure seems to be plenty of spirit for football games and ALL athletics. My D is using Miami's school spirit as THE benchmark for how she measures it at all other schools and her opinion is based upon attending Miami football games within the the last couple of years.</p>
<p>If you must be around 100,000 screaming football fans, Miami is not for you. We are in a mid-major D1 conference for most sports, except hockey. (The CCHA is the hockey equivalent of the Big 10.) Miami has a long and storied history in football as the 'Cradle of Coaches'. We did produce Ben Roethlisberger, after all. Most fraternities will have pre-game tailgating - at their houses. Many other students will 'fire up' somewhere else around campus then walk to the stadium within an hour of the game. A lot of alumni will tailgate near the stadium. Compared to BCS schools, Miami's pre-game tailgating is not exactly impressive. Keep in mind our football team has not done particularly well the past two years, so attendance has been down. However, our most recent football recruiting class is rated top in the MAC and better than many BCS schools, so things are looking up, and attendance will definitely improve. The football stadium is in not huge (25,000 capacity), but was recently renovated - and it's in a beautiful setting. Since our hockey team has a brand-new ice arena and we've been a top-10 nationwide team the last three years, hockey has been the most popular sport recently. Miami's basketball, baseball, and swimming/diving teams are also very good. Overall, Miami is very athletically oriented. We have one of the largest and best organized intramural sports programs in the country.</p>