Dave in Green

I'm not interested in getting into a personal debate over which Zips fans are "better" than others. In my book, all fans of Zips basketball are better than those with no interest at all. But I do think it's useful in discussions like this to have a better understanding of how a word such as fan came into use, it's original intention and definition, and what it has come to stand for in the modern context. Consider the following from Wikipedia about the definition of fan: Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other recognized sources define it as a shortened version of the word fanatic, and the word did first become popular in reference to an enthusiastic follower of a baseball team. (Fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion". It comes from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired". It appears that the original use of fan was to separate the most fanatical followers of a team from general spectators who may have followed a team with interest but not unconditional enthusiasm and loyalty. Over the years, general use of the word fan has become more generic to the point that it is virtually synonymous with spectator. In that context, we now have to add an adjective to separate the most enthusiastic fans from more casual fans. Thus you now have some called "rabid fans" and some "fair weather fans." Summing it up, today's fans may range from the original concept of sports team followers "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion" to casual sports team followers who do not exhibit all the characteristics of fanaticism.

I smell a wager. I'll give you $10 for every game the Zips score over 100 this season; you give me $1.50 for every game that they don't. You sure know a good betting opportunity when you see one. While I think the current Zips players may be capable of scoring over 100 point a game this season, I have serious doubts about Coach Dambrot allowing them to run wild. So I'll just say I think they're going to average more points this season and be more entertaining to watch on offense.

Doug, you disappoint me. As catcher, all you had to do was call for a pitchout on the next pitch to fulfill your baseball prophesy.

The game evolves to fit the rules. If the rules favor passing, passing will prevail. If the rules favor running, running will prevail. Wide open offenses with lots of passing make for better highlight reels than 3 yards and a cloud of (synthetic turf) dust. It draws in more casual fans and generates more income.

Coach Porter confirms what everyone here saw: “We didn’t sustain a high enough level on either side of the ball to deserve to win tonight,” UA coach Caleb Porter said in a statement. “We hadn’t played that caliber of opponent in the season thus far and it showed, especially in our individual and collective defending. Santa Barbara played through us far too easily and we didn’t show the grit and intensity that we needed.” And this quote also supports what is being said in this thread: “UCSB is certainly a talented team and they exposed us at times when we weren’t clicking,” Porter said. “But I know this team has it in them to perform better. Maybe we needed this type of game as a bit of a rude awakening to realize we still have a ways to go in order to be a championship caliber team.” Beacon Story

Pretty much manhandled on both offense and defense. My hand was reaching for the remote control before the final goal in OT as I could see it coming. Other teams seeing video of this game before playing the Zips will be more confident about their chances of beating UA. The Zips have a lot of growing to do before the end of the season.

The Zips were just flat outhustled for much of the first 90 minutes. They started coming alive toward the end. Now they just have to keep it up in OT.

Now that I'm watching the game, I'm not sure I want to. I'm not used to seeing a Zips soccer team totally on the defensive. They can't get any offense going against that swarming defense. And now the score is tied, 1-1. This is going to be a tough game if the Zips don't come up with some effective offense.

Wow, I just woke up and realized I get the Fox Soccer Channel on TWC. I'm going to enjoy watching soccer at home tonight on the big screen.

I can understand some fans wanting to see a little more showmanship from the Zips band or wanting to hear some different music selections. But whatever they play is going to turn some people on and some people off. The important thing to me is that whatever they play each week they're playing well. I'm enjoying the halftime shows for the quality of the music.

Anything that makes us chuckle about the Zips football program right now is good.

Another thing that helps bring in casual fans is a high-scoring offense. Averaging 100+ points per game over the early part of the season with lots of TV sports highlight flying jams is guaranteed to raise attendance. Previous slow and deliberate Zips teams weren't up for this. But the current roster may be capable of performing well at an up-tempo pace.

I just finished watching the third and final chapter of Ken Burns' Prohibition on PBS tonight. It was awesome. I highly recommend it to everyone for its historical value. Those who are familiar with the old quotation, attributed to different people and worded in many different ways, but roughly "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it," will really appreciate this look back at a failed social experiment based on a single-issue special interest group with the best of intentions doggedly lobbying politicians to impose a national law that turned out to create terrible unintended consequences for society in general. I won't say anything more, as I would like for everyone to see it with an open mind and discuss it here. It's six hours long, but thankfully commercial free. But you must watch every minute of it and pay close attention all the way through. There are more twists and turns to the concept of Prohibition and its place in history than I ever imagined.

You guys are having way too much fun in this thread. I'm going to have to compose a long, serious post to settle things down.

I'm saving up all my one-liners until I get old and bitter and arthritis sets into my fingers.

To judge the difficulty for a mid-major like UA to attract big-name teams into the JAR, take a look at the home OOC schedules of other mid-major schools with programs similar to UA's and see how many big-name teams visit their arenas. Take Miami, for example. They generally play the toughest OOC road schedule of any MAC team. How many home games do they get in return from the big-name teams? It's not that all the mid-majors like UA aren't trying.

Yeah, my brother-in-law Hilltopper knows me too well. He knows I was kidding about the billboard, and he went along with the joke. Everyone knows the old saying about words being cheap, and I figured the big talkers here were too cheap to get together and spring for a billboard. But, seriously, Zip Watcher made some seriously good points. We're all frustrated as heck that the Zips can't turn the corner and start beating at least the weakest of the FBS teams they're facing. People can say some pretty wild things when they're frustrated, which reminds me of my late father frequently reminding me as a kid to keep my mouth shut when I got frustrated and try to think things out before engaging my mouth. I'll throw out a thought I haven't seen mentioned. It's pure speculation. But I've seen it happen before in both sports and business, so it's at least a possible scenario here. When UA went looking for a new head football coach, it was with the recent history of the Zips having just had a serious personnel problem that resulted in the mid-season ending of the career of a starting QB. Depending on the depth of the perceived personnel problems, it's possible that UA made the decision to place the highest priority on bringing in a squeaky clean coach. Many of the other potential head football coaches who have been mentioned here over the past couple of years have been involved with dirty programs. UA has obviously put a high priority on hiring and keeping high-character coaches who recruit high-character players in its other sports. Keith Dambrot and Caleb Porter are two good examples of this, and I expect the other UA coaches who I don't know as much about also fit that mold. With all the complaints about Rob Ianello, the one thing no one has tried to accuse him of is being a shady operator. To the contrary, many have criticized him for being nerdy sounding and nerdy looking. So if UA has tasked Ianello with building a squeaky clean program with high-character kids, that's something that takes more time than cutting corners with high-risk, marginal characters who happen to be great athletes. That's one of the reasons why I believe that, despite the poor won-lost record to date, UA will be patient with Ianello putting together a sound program the right way. Ultimately the program is going to have to produce more wins than it has to date. But I think UA knew when they hired Ianello that they were not hiring a quick turnaround guy. That's one of the reasons why I'm willing to be a little more patient than some other fans.

After seeing Holmes play and the dimension he adds to the Zips offense, you can definitely see where his presence might have made a difference in those two early season ties.

Exactly. Although we're all frustrated, and want to vent to our fellow fans, we are likely wasting our time with discussions about his dismissal. I'm guessing that we could probably put that part of the discussion on hold until at least the end of the 2012 season. STRONGLY DISAGREE. We need to keep this on the front burner putting a lot of heat on Porenza and Wistrcill. Complaciancy is our worst enemy. The message needs to be loud and often. Tom Wistrcill needs to feel the heat. So long as his job is secure he wont act. This must be fixed immediately if not sooner. Kick Ianello to the curb. You're kidding, right? You don't honestly believe that a few dozen disgruntled fans repeating Ianello Must Go more often on ZN.O is going to put a lot of heat on Proenza and Wistrcill? All that would do is make ZN.O harder to read for other fans here. Proenza and Wistrcill are reminded much more powerfully of fan discontent by the dwindling size of the crowds at every home game. If you want to reinforce that, take up a collection and rent the closest billboard to the UA campus -- one they'll see every day as they drive into work. Put up a message in big block letters: FIRE COACH IANELLO NOW! (Sponsored by Zips Football Fans Who Are Tired of Losing) Something like that would at least get more people talking.

CK, I don't think you mean to imply that older people don't continue to learn and improve at whatever it is they do. I think it's safe to say that the best experienced college football head coaches have all significantly improved over their first couple of seasons. It's also true that some rookie head coaches never improve enough to make a career of it, and end up moving back into the role of assistants. But I agree with you that all fans should feel free to express their disappointment in a lack of significant improvement in game results. Even Ianello's most ardent supporters will have to admit that it's possible that he's not cut out to be a head coach. Of course, Doug Snyder is also correct that a few people wrote off Ianello the day he was announced and started campaigning against him without giving him any chance to prove himself. That's just the nature of sports and sports fans. Nothing anyone says here is going to change that.

@Spin, obviously not as UA has never claimed a 30k+ paid attendance at any football game. Do students have to show an i.d. or something to get in? If they scan a student card, for example, they may have an actual number for students and add that to all the tickets that were sold to individuals plus the ones that went to sponsors as part of paid sponsorship packages. That's just my best guess. Hopefully, someone in the know can share with us how students are actually counted for the official attendance.

I like to look at these types of discussions as opportunities to educate other people who may not have the experience to understand how something works. No one knows it all. But a large group of people who share knowledge can know more than any one person. Sometimes it takes a little patience to explain things in an understandable way.

Some folks who used to sit near us at Zips basketball games gave up their season tickets and quit coming to games last season. They expressed extreme disappointment that Zeke Marshall didn't dominate the MAC and earn Player of the Year in his freshman season as they expected from a 7-foot player in the MAC. Point is, not all 7-footers are at the same developmental level early in their college basketball careers, and the same applies to college football coaches early in their head coaching careers. Some develop fast, some develop slowly, and some never develop much at all. Zeke has developed a little slower than we might have hoped, but he did show fair development by the end of his sophomore season. Much more is expected of him in his third season. At this point, Ianello's development appears to be pretty slow. But being head coach of a football team is one of the most complex and challenging jobs in sports. So while I'm disappointed like everyone else at the results to date, I continue to support the concept of giving Ianello a fair and reasonable opportunity to demonstrate if he can develop into a winning head football coach at UA. Fair and reasonable to me is a minimum of two full seasons and a maximum of three full seasons. He must show at least some progress by the end of this season, and if he does, next season is make or break time.

The only point I disagree with you on is singling out UA as if they calculate attendance differently than most others. In fact, UA calculates attendance in a similar way to how most other sports and entertainment event attendance is calculated. That's why this subject is a common point of discussion on sports forums across the country representing every type of college and professional sport. Heck, I've even seen sports writers joke in newspaper articles about the small number of spectators in seats compared with the high "official paid attendance" numbers announced. This discrepancy becomes most glaring when a team has performed poorly for an extended period and more and more sold tickets go unused, which is obviously the current situation with Zips football. I think that those who've lived in many different cities across the U.S. and followed many different sports teams over the years have an easier time understanding that this is not a unique UA problem. It's a common result of the generally accepted way of announcing attendance.

I'm not sure that anyone here is "defending" the concept of paid attendance as much as acknowledging the reality of currently accepted English language usage. To be precise: Paid attendance is defined as seats sold. Actual attendance is defined as seats filled. So, yeah, UA could have sold 14,000+ seat tickets by providing many thousands of tickets in exchange for sponsorship dollars to go along with a few thousand individual ticket sales. And that fits the current definition of paid attendance. Now, if you want to debate how accurate the definition of paid attendance is, there would be many on your side, including me. Attendance suggests that someone actually attended the game. I personally think that paid attendance is a misleading term if people don't actually attend and fill the seats that were purchased. If it were me, I'd change "paid attendance" to "ticket sales," and reserve "attendance" for the actual number of people who attend the game, i.e. butts in seats. But by the currently accepted definition of paid attendance, I would defend UA's right to claim 14,000+ if they actually sold a combination of 14,000+ tickets to individuals and sponsors as part of sponsorship packages.