I stand corrected-after 32 years away, my memory gets a little foggy! :) I tried to see if there were year-by-year records for attendance but haven't found anything yet, so if there were more of us that attended years ago, works for me. I will say, it seems we had more Saturday home games back in the day, which always boosts attendance.

And its not just Ohio's attendance that's down. I was shocked to read over the weekend attendance at NASCAR was down last year. At least Ohio's in good company if both the NFL and NASCAR are seeing a decrease.

Mark, honesty I think sports is down as a whole. It seems people either aren't into following non championship winning teams (aka bandwagon followers) or they have found other things to do. I read somewhere, perhaps someone could find the exact stats, that a couple of years ago that of all the top attendance figures for each individual major league baseball team, most involved some sort of giveaway. Perhaps it was during the Bobble-head craze. Lots of options, different era, and a different mentality I guess.

Uncle Wes, I seem to recall that Ohio University's student body was lower than your mid 1980s figures in the early 1980s. I recall being in high school in the early 1980s and I can't remember if a campus recruiter came to our school, or if it was figures given to our high school guidance counselor. However, 12,000 sticks out in my mind.

Alan, you are right about developing a routine. It sure made planning ahead easy, even though we had far fewer cars, and options for other activities than do students today.

Saul is one of the most dynamic figures on campus. He could get out there and sell coming to the games more.

He should work the bars uptown on Friday's for Saturday games. If the head coach asked my group of buddies to go to a game we would probably at least consider it.

Not sure about the bars but he hit every dorm lounge on campus when he first got here. We had him in Pickering in the fall of 1980. Electric atmosphere. He was such a contrast to Dale Bandy. Unfortunately today most coaches stay out of bars on their own or instructed to do so. Since everyone is a photographer, one "bad" picture and it's a mess for everyone involved. The pendulum has swung way too far to one side, again.

It's a different type of student at every school these days because how competitive it is from H.S. on to get into a decent college. They'll still fire up in Athens around the weekends and like to impress their friends from other schools with a 10,000+ Convo crowd. The segment where we are struggling with is the alumni who are fond of their college town days but have kept a small college opinion of what OU should be athletically. What should be obvious with a 13,000 seat arena it's not because they don't realize how high it stacks up nationally.

Hmm - tell me more - about where this good food is I seem to have been missing......

Lobster tail buffet. Here is an idea market the $50 dollar food and drink ticket in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati the way you advertise for a casino buffet. Different marketing for different folks.

Nee hit most everything when he first got to Athens 😃😳

Who would have guessed that a for-profit school with more than 60,000 online students to go along with 20,000 on campus in a metro area of 4.5 million could end up with a fancier arena and bigger crowd than the Convo?

Edit: More insight into this place many sports fans have not heard of: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/sports/ncaabasketball/...

Did you read the article? All their eggs are in the hoops basket. No football. Massive amounts of money to lure in big-name opponents, famous names running the program, the glitter and novelty of a new arena. It's the face of marketing for the school and they have no limits on spending -- and they're doing it in one of the 15 largest markets in the U.S. It's ridiculous to compare the two places and programs.

Edit: Here's an argument against even wanting to be like them: http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/109068712/grand-cany...

Yeah, they're following the model that programs like Xavier, Gonzaga, Creighton and other non-football programs have done. Those programs aren't for-profit, but It's not hard math when you don't have a football program. They're lucky to be in a major metro area too.

My question to you is do you really think students are more engaged simply because this is something that's nice and new and shiny and bright? If that's the case and Ohio's history and tournament success is outshined by a school like GCU, which has only been in Division I for all of 3.5 seasons, then we're way behind the 8-ball.

And I'm not saying I "want" to be like GCU. I'm just giving an example of how engaged crowds can be in the year of 2017. We place way too much blame on the changing culture of college campuses and changing landscape of athletics. It's not impossible to pack a house and make it rock like this.

The arena doesn't have a hanging scoreboard though!

The student section experience I am most familiar with is the O-Zone as I got involved the year it was founded during the 2001-2002 season. I first remember hearing promotions for it at football games during that, ahem, wonderful fall where Ohio played something that kind of resembled football. But that's a different topic!

Some may remember that a group of students, led by Dan "D-Lowe" Lowe camped out to be the first official members during a "pick your seat" O-Zone launch event. I was good friends with all of those individuals as a student but other commitments prevented me from camping out with them for the however many days they were perched on the Convo concourse. When I joined them on the Sunday afternoon of the launch event, I was maybe only 10 places behind them in line and I arrived at best 30 minutes before the doors opened. I would guess fewer than 100 students total came that day to kick off the "new" student section. Promotion I remember was pretty well done given the available methods at the time. The closest thing available then to a Facebook event would have been a mass IM on AIM lol.

Point being going back 15+ years there wasn't some mad, raucous rush to the door to fill up the O-Zone at its launch. Many of my best college friends were in the O-Zone and/or 110 (meaning already at the game) but I knew plenty of people who had little to no interest in any organized sports. The basketball team would walk around the dining halls with coaches handing out tickets. There were articles in The Post asking for people to come out and offering free pizza, t-shirts, etc. and many people were more interested in watching the latest episode of Dawson's Creek.

I would argue that the 5-10 years that followed its founding were as good as any Ohio student section has ever been. The home Miami game in the 2001-2002 season was, in my opinion, one of the greatest displays ever put on by the O-Zone. The movie "Blackhawk Down" was in theaters at the time and many of us played off that with Redhawks etc.

I also remember though an athletics staff member coming through and inspecting all of our signs and other props and taking some away before the game. Some of the signs taken away would be considered tame or even lame by today's standards.

Bring in some high profile games at a time when you know students will be on campus and the seats will be filled. If Ohio State would come to Athens (I know, keep dreaming), even with an average team, it would bring students out of the woodwork. Free DP Dough and a pair of Ugg boots for the ladies (or whatever is most popular now) wouldn't sell out if the Cats are playing Northern Illinois.

I remember the event vividly and I think your recollection is off. As you said, the main reason for the event was to claim your seat - We had assigned seats at that time. They also fed us pizza and had the coaches talk. That was the day the WT/LT was reborn when Coach Rhodes explained how it was done when he was a student.

I wasn't very early to the line, but I was not able to get in the middle 2 sections and ended up in the 3rd row of the home bench side. I recall nearly all the seats being claimed that day, and this was before the days of the 110 being in the Ozone. Keep in mind it was also coming off a disappointing season and a coach firing, for a team that hadn't been to the postseason since Gary Trent. It also cost like $15 I think to get the shirt and seat. Imagine if they had a random day in November to claim your seat for the upcoming season for $15 this past November...It would have been a depressing turnout.

Yes of course there was thousands of apathetic students then as well, but it isn't even comparable to today.