<p>Hi Bucco,</p>
<p>I’m going to copy and paste a response to this question from Jeff Kent, who was last year’s president of Richmond Rowdies, our school spirit organization. It’s lengthy, but it should answer all your questions about sports!</p>
<p>"Thanks for bringing up this topic. When I graduate I want to work in Sports Marketing. Athletics and school spirit are two areas that I am extremely passionate about. Attendance goes hand in hand with the topics of athletics and school spirit.</p>
<p>I would say that attendance at basketball and football games is good, but it can definitely be better. When discussing our attendances numbers, certain factors come into play. First off, we are a small sized school of approximately 3,000 undergraduate students. Secondly, a lot of our alums do not remain in the Richmond area. Our basketball arena can be misleading as well. If you come for the Accepted Student Open House you will be able to go inside, but there are 9,171 seats, so even if we get a good sized crowd, it takes a lot of people to fill the arena. It is a very impressive facility. </p>
<p>We have a student crowd/school spirit organization called the Richmond Rowdies, who help to advertise/market athletic events, develop gameday promotions, and elevate school spirit on campus. A big event they organize in the fall is called Spider Mayhem, which is an event to kick-off our basketball season. Last year a dunk in the slam dunk contest appeared on SportCenter’s Top 10 Plays. As a first year student you have the opportunity to apply for a spot on their executive board. I was President for 2 years and can provide you with further info if you are interested.</p>
<p>I am a diehard sports fan and my favorite sport to watch is men’s college basketball. For someone like yourself who also has a passion for college basketball, I think this school is a good choice because it is the highest level of competition, division 1. We compete in the Atlantic-10 Conference versus such schools as Xavier, Dayton, Temple, UMass, Charlotte, George Washington, St. Louis, Duquesne, etc. In my 4 years here we have also played against Syracuse, Memphis, UVA, Virginia Tech, VCU, and Wake Forest. This year one of our star players, Dan Geriot, tour his ACL in a summer league game in Philly. This posed an obstacle for our team, but we still won 20 games and played in the College Basketball Invitational postseason tourney, where we made it to the semi-finals and lost to UTEP. We are only losing 1 senior who played regularly and then 2 seniors who were walk-ons. Next year, the outlook is great. We expect to be at the top of our conference and compete for an automatic bid into the NCAA tourney. Worst case scenario we are looking at an NIT bid. So for you, you would be walking into a good situation, with high expectations for the team.</p>
<p>Our football team plays off campus (about a 10-15 minute drive). However, our new on-campus stadium will be ready for play in fall 2010. Everyone is very excited about that new $25 million stadium. Also, our football team won the National Championship this past season in the Football Championship Series, formerly Division 1-AA. Our main rival is James Madison and we also have a rival with William and Mary that is one of the oldest rivalries in the country. This past season was unreal. It was the first NCAA title in school history. We had a bus for students to head to Boone, NC when we upset Appalachian State (3-time defending champ) in the quarterfinals. We knocked off Northern Iowa in the semis with a drive down the field where we took the lead with under 30 seconds left in the game. Then we beat the Montana Grizzlies in the championship game 24-7. I was there at the title game, as were a ton of Spiders fans. It was the best night of my life. I had a front row seat and stormed the field after!!! I put together a 30 minute DVD to recap the magical season and have given a copy to the Head Football Coach, Mike London, who by the way is the man! Everyone thinks he is awesome. I think there will be a promotional bobblehead day in his honor next season. He is a UR alum too, so he understand what it means to be a student at this great University.</p>
<p>What you can expect next season as a student here:
- All students receive a Richmond Rowdies t-shirt during New Student Orientation.
- We have a points system called Preyground Points where you earn points for attending football games and men’s and women’s basketball games. These points earn you prizes such as restaurant gift cards, pint glasses, t-shirts, hats, etc. The top point-getters receive huge prizes like JetBlue tickets, NYC concert tickets, Papa John’s pizza for a year, etc.
- All of our athletic events are free, by just showing your Student ID Card.
- Because of our size, you seem to know a lot of the players, or you at least see them around campus or in classes and you feel like you are more a part of the teams, even though you may be just a fan. It’s that type of community feel on this campus."</p>
<p>Whew! anyway, In regards to campus-wide events - we do have a yearly tradition called Pig Roast which happens in April. All the fraternity lodges open up around 11am on a Saturday, there is BBQ and whatnot and it is really fun. It ends around 4pm. I would definitely say a LARGE portion of the student body goes because it’s a huge deal. Girls wear sundresses, but guys don’t really dress up beyond like wearing a polo. Some guys dress up but… that’s just because some guys here just love dressing up. Haha.</p>
<p>As far as football games, yeah, a lot of girls wear dresses and guys wear shirts and ties… HOWEVER, that’s not the case for everyone, and some people do dress in school-spirity clothes, like the Rowdies. And pretty much everyone tailgates.</p>
<p>Frats have their official rush 2nd semester, but guys check out the frats 1st semester and pretty much know which one they want to be in before they come back from winter break.</p>
<p>There are stores (a grocery store, CVS, a couple nice cafes) within walking distance if you REALLY wanted to walk but there is an hourly shuttle that can take you there off campus so walking isn’t really necessary.</p>