http://www.bcheights.com/opinion/editorials/midnight-madness-1.1594169
This Saturday, last Saturday, and countless Saturdays before, students descended from Upper Campus, rode buses from Newton, were coaxed out of the Mods, journeyed from Foster, South, and streets beyond, and otherwise perambulated from all points of the compass to Alumni Stadium to partake in Boston College’s oldest athletic tradition. Yet, football is far from the only sport here, and it is time to acknowledge that in substantative ways.
That is why this year, we encourage new basketball coach Steve Donahue, Vice President of Student Affairs Patrick Rombalski, the athletics department, and University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., to reconsider the longtime ban on Midnight Madness and to reinstitute it or some similar event to mark the beginning of the basketball season.
Midnight Madness, for those who are not yet fans of college basketball, takes the form of a pep rally held at midnight on the very first day that NCAA regulations allow basketball teams to practice. At many schools where basketball has an established fan culture, these celebrations can become ornate and anticipated annual events.
This campus knows that the athletics department, when it comes to sports other than football, is engaged in a struggle for our hearts and minds. It seems that even the generous distribution of freebies and other marketing ploys still doesn’t get students somewhere they do not want to be. A vibrant fan culture cannot be created by hyperactive Jumbotron displays or even by chants of “We are BC!” Sports have to be something talked about at tables in the Rat, satirized in The New England Classic, and shunned by students who want to assert themselves as intellectuals.
The question remains – how do we bring attention to some of our less-appreciated sports? We think that the institution of a major annual event, one with music and pageantry and celebrity hosts, might be just the kind of thing to tip the balance toward active post-football fandom.
Our hockey and basketball programs deserve more attention, and not just from the student body. Everyone from the director of athletics on down says we need more of a fan culture around basketball and hockey, that these sports deserve our attention. There is already one Catholic school with the reputation of being a football powerhouse; BC could be the Catholic school that is an all-around athletic powerhouse.
We hope that this University will consider the return of Midnight Madness, or the institution of an event of equal pomp and circumstance. This year’s Undergraduate Government of BC (UGBC) budget indicates that it has allocated funds for exactly such an event. May that money be well spent.