Athletes feel ‘left out’ but so does everyone else

“The athletes are left out from student life and need more support,” said Mike Teague in regards to the reasoning for Pit Pride.

Vanguard University has always been good about supporting the sports teams.There are always advertisements for their games and events posted around campus. In addition to that, any games I have attended or passed by have a large turnout to cheer on our home teams. They seem to have an amazing amount of support, but Teague said otherwise.

As a music major, the “need” for more support for our athletes bewilders me when only a few rows in Needham Chapel or Newport Mesa Church are filled during our ensemble and solo performances. I understand our low concert attendance because classical, jazz, and opera doesn’t always please the ears of contemporary audiences. Yet the lack of support still hurts due to the innumerable hours we musicians put into honing our skills, just like the athletes with their sports and just like everyone else trying to do well in their vocations.

But never mind my whining about low concert attendance. Who knows what’s going on with the “non-athletes” in the science and mathematics, liberal studies, and business departments?

You can argue that athletes are involved in these majors because they are students at the end of the day, but I’m talking about students who aren’t involved in sports on campus.

Personally, I wonder what new discoveries our science majors are making. How are our liberal studies majors developing their skills to educate future generations? Remember that business major you rejected to the Junior Senior Banquet? You’re going to regret that decision when you find out they are worth millions.

Let me tell you a little secret, Vanguard University is not a special place where everyone is going to love and worship you. It is like any other university in the way that people are either going to like you or not have a single care for you.

People tend to group together based on common interests. Cliques form here on campus the exact same way they did in high school. You can identify a group of students sitting together and think, “Oh, there’s the theatre kids flamboyantly quoting Shakespeare to each other,” or “Hey, look at the worship team members whose Hebrew tattoos read left to right instead of the correct way.” Non-athletes will see a clique of VU basketball players and automatically assume that they are an exclusive group.

My dear athletes, please do not think that I am trying to disregard your feelings of being left out if you have any. I know some of you personally and think you are wonderful people. What I am trying to say is that there are numerous students out there who share those feelings and want to be embraced by the student body and supported in their aspirations as well.

All in all, the athletes already have more campus-wide support than any other group of students. If residence life truly cared about supporting each individual student on the campus where, “Your Story Matters,” why don’t they strive to support literally everyone else?