I find it funny that Boston University students continue to complain about the fact that we don’t have a football team. It is the most over-discussed topic among all sports fans at the school.

“I’d definitely go to every game,” your typical fan says. “Plus it would make BU feel much more like a campus than it does now.”

Those of you who continue to believe we should have a football squad need to know two things:

1. There will never be a team here while you are an undergraduate.

2. If you want there to be a team at some point down the road, you need to be more supportive of sports other than hockey.

I can already hear the responses:

1. How will going to other games have an effect?

2. What other sports could I possibly go watch, moron?

Well, you see, that is exactly where the problem lies. Other than the hockey team here, teams that play well suffer from an extreme lack of support from the student body. No other team plays in front of a capacity crowd no matter what the stage is. In order to get any support here, teams have to be great, and even that doesn’t always produce the butts in the seats that teams deserve. It’s not like the hockey team is the only one that plays well year in and year out, either.

My freshman year in 2004, for example, the men’s soccer team had a great season and earned a home game in the NCAA tournament. The game against Dartmouth College turned out to be a thriller that BU won in a shootout. Unfortunately, they got the victory in front of a Nickerson crowd that filled only one-fourth of the stands — an embarrassing turnout for a team that played well all season long.

Soccer isn’t the only team seriously lacking in fan support. Why is there no support for our nationally ranked women’s lacrosse team? How come only players’ parents were at the games of BU’s softball team, which finished one win short of an NCAA tournament berth? And how can a school with a NCAA Division I men’s basketball team play in the tiny Case Gymnasium in front of a nightly crowd that totals in the low- to mid-hundreds?

The bottom line is this: If there were a football team here before you came to BU, and it finished 2-9 every year, there is no chance it would garner enough support to continue on.

I’m a huge football fan. It is my favorite sport of ’em all. But there is no way that I would sit and watch a lackluster squad get its brains stomped for six Saturdays a year. A tailgate at 10 a.m. would give students a nice excuse to drink before noon on a day not called Marathon Monday, but it would still result in a terrible turnout.

Look at it this way. Can you honestly tell me that you would wake up and carry your Saturday morning cottonmouth to Nickerson Field to watch the Terriers play Division I-AA football instead of watching the Ohio State-Texas game on TV? I can’t see it happening with many people, if you ask me.

Students weren’t going to the games when the program was cut, and that wouldn’t change any with today’s students. Can you think of any reason why more people would be inclined more to go today rather than 10 years ago? Everyone likes football, but no one likes watching a bad team.

If you want our school to ever have a football team, start by showing up at The Roof tonight for the basketball game against the University of Vermont. Rumor has it they are rolling in with 300 to 400 fans, which about doubles the average Terrier student section for games.

There are more than enough reasons for you to show up. It’s senior night for Brian Macon and Omari Peterkin. It’s going to be televised on NESN, meaning you can make a fool of yourself on live TV. It also represents a great opportunity to break out the “Wheels on your house” chant in front of a nice crowd of Vermont residents.

Most importantly, it would be an embarrassment to have Terrier fans outnumbered by Catamount faithful.

We have to start somewhere, and more support for the other teams on campus is vital before anyone complains about the lack of pigskin anymore.

Chris Lyons, a junior in the College of Communication, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].