After one year in Columbia, I have come to two conclusions: 1. Carolina students love Gamecocks football and sometimes baseball. 2. Other than those two, Carolina students don't seem to love anything else when it comes to sports.
One thing I heard a lot of people say before I moved down here last year from Richmond, Va. was how awesome of a town this is and their attitude toward sports. If it isn't Carolina football or a big game for the baseball squad, those hardcore Gamecocks fans I've heard so much about seem to stay in the hen house.
Columbia has two minor league teams playing right down the street from the dorms, however most students either don't know or don't really care. The Columbia Inferno is a professional hockey team playing at the double-A level in the ECHL. They have been in Columbia since 2001 and have played all of their home games inside the Carolina Coliseum. Even though they play in the building that houses the School of Journalism and the Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management School, the Inferno's average attendance has hovered near the bottom each year.
Just a stones throw away from the Coliseum is where the Columbia Stingers play inside the Colonial Center. The Stingers are in their inaugural season in the National Indoor Football League and are only charging $5 for student tickets, yet USC students are hard to come by at games.
Columbia already lost the Capital City Bombers to the city of Greenville following the 2004 season. The Bombers wanted to stay in Columbia and were trying to get a new stadium built to share with USC, but the school balked at the idea so the team left. The city went from having a single-A team to the Columbia Blowfish, a summer collegiate baseball team. If they leave, I guess the city could always get a little league t-ball team to play their season at Capitol City Stadium.
The point is, we all need to support the local teams or they will leave and won't be replaced. Carolina fans can't put all of their eggs in Steve Spurrier's basket, because sooner or later, the Ol' Ball Coach is going to be gone and Columbia fans won't have any team worth cheering for.
-- Cory Burkarth
Staff writer, Sports
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5 comments:
Could you really throw a stone from the Coliseum to the Colonial Center?
Oh, wait, that was a figure of speech.
My bad.
The university and city have a terrible relationship, which was clearly on display during the new baseball stadium negotiations. It's irresponsible to say USC "balked" at the idea of sharing a stadium. You also make no mention of the USC sport teams and clubs which receive little fan support and one issue behind that is the complete lack of publicity they receive. I wonder who would be in a position to do something about that...
Yeah, why doesn't The Gamecock cover and give publicity to sports other than football and baseball?
Wait ... they do ... in almost every issue.
My mistake.
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