Supporters, students revel in Irish win
By ANNE MARIE
MATTINGLY
ST. LOUIS
Some considered themselves to be longstanding Notre Dame women's basketball fans, while others admitted getting caught up in the excitement of a potential national title. Some camped out in the Joyce Center to purchase the coveted Final Four tickets, while others made the journey to St. Louis not knowing whether they'd be able to get into the Savvis Center. They represented different classes, different residence halls and different degrees of sports knowledge.
But all came to be a part of the magic.
Standing Room Only
When an arena usher tried to calm the small Notre Dame student section and persuade the ticketholders to have a seat during Friday's Final Four game against Connecticut, one student asked her, "Where on my ticket does it say I have to sit?"
Though they represented only a fraction of the Notre Dame student body and an even smaller proportion of the 22,500 in attendance at the NCAA women's basketball Final Four, the Notre Dame students who made the 360 mile trek to St. Louis were impossible to ignore. Eighty minutes on the floor of St. Louis's Savvis Center stood between the Notre Dame women and the 2001 National Championship, and for 80 minutes the ticketholders of Section 106 stood with them.
"I didn't know they tried to get us to sit down, but there is no way that Notre Dame students would ever sit down during an athletic event, so I was just expecting that we were going to stand. It wasn't even something that crossed our mind," said sophomore Kristen Nonbello of Friday's game against Connecticut.
Even if it had crossed their minds, it's unlikely that these students would have been able to contain their enthusiasm enough to stay in their seats. After all, student Chris Wright — who has attended "every game [he] possibly could have" this year — couldn't even go to sleep after the team's Elite Eight victory over Vanderbilt in Denver. Instead, Wright found himself venturing to the Joyce Center in anticipation of purchasing Final Four tickets.
"As soon as we beat Vanderbilt we bundled up — I think I was wearing about five layers of clothing — and we took off to the JACC and when we got there, they told us that we weren't allowed to line up until 6 a.m.," he said. "We stood there even though they told us not to but after an hour we noticed that nobody else was going to come until 6 a.m. the next morning, so we took off. We woke up at 4 a.m. and decided to head out at 4 a.m."
Student Stephen Smith, who bought his tickets after arriving in St. Louis, decided that the section where those who purchased tickets in the student sale were sitting was the only place to be.
"We didn't have any tickets. We came right after class at 12 o'clock. We finally scalped a ticket," said Smith. "We got tickets all the way up in like, the 14,000th row in the middle of the UConn section. We were down by 17, so I told my friend that we had to move down to the Notre Dame section, so we snuck down to the Notre Dame section and lo and behold, we started winning, and we won by 15 points."
Lewis Hall resident assistant Mari Pyle traveled to Missouri Sunday without tickets and not knowing if she'd be able to get them, but felt that just being in town to cheer for the Irish was important enough.
"We came down this morning and we were just excited to support the team. We have two [players] in our dorm, Ericka [Haney] and Alicia [Ratay], and we just wanted to support our team," she said. "We were just going to be here for the spirit and the team and then go out afterwards and celebrate."
That type of support was unwavering, even when the team was down by 17 points at the end of the first half against Connecticut.
"I came to the game not as the mascot but as a superfan of the Fighting Irish women's basketball team," said Michael Brown, the 2000-01 Varsity Leprechaun. "People doubted them, but guess what, I called home at halftime. I told my family, `Don't worry. We're down by so many points. We're gonna come back.' And guess what. They did. Let's go Irish!"
Smith believes that it is in part the confidence of the fans that helped the team to pull off its record-breaking comeback.
"I think that our attitude carries onto the team, and therefore, that's why they won," he said.
Packing the House
But despite the turnout for this year's tournament, women's basketball hasn't always enjoyed this kind of support from students or from the South Bend community.
"We used to be able to have socials with 100 people, and now we don't even have room," said Kaye Kale, a South Bend resident who has been following the team since 1991. "Now we can't even do the tables. We have to just set up chairs. We've had, for the first, time, two full houses. People have realized that women's basketball is fun."
Phyllis Smallwood, who became a Notre Dame women's basketball fan six years ago, noted that support has continued to increase over the past several years.
"In the last 6 years, it's gone from probably 900 to 1,000 to 5,000, and it keeps going up every time," she said. "It's wonderful."
Kale attributes the growing number of fans in part to recruitment of new fans by current ones.
"That's how we've built a base. We've all gone out and told people, `You know, you've got to come to games' Look how we've grown. I miss the camaraderie of the smaller groups and finding a seat real easily, but now we have season tickets and we've come a long way. It's great."
But attendance and student enthusiasm still isn't at the level that many of these die-hard fans would like to see.
"The students are not coming out, and that disgusts me because you get all these people from South Bend, La Porte, Rochester, all around coming to see the game and the student section is empty. That's not right," said Christine Frazier, who has attended women's basketball games since 1984 and who traveled to Cincinnati for the 1997 Final Four.
Kale said that student support seems to be very good for the most important games, but that attendance at lesser-publicized games is sparse.
"It was really good for Connecticut, and it was really good for the first two NCAA [games]," she said. "I think it could be a lot better. I think they're missing a bit."
Wright agreed that his fellow students need to be at the Joyce Center for all the games, not just those that have been nationally advertised.
"We show up for the big games, but for the games — a lot of the Big East games especially — we need to show a little bit more support," he said.
Many fans attribute the lack of support to a lack of respect for women's teams, despite the more than 25 years that have passed since the implementation of measures designed to equalize women's sports with men's.
"We do have Title [IX] equality now and women are just as important as men," said Kale. Frazier noted that she preferred women's basketball to men's and that better coaching at the high school level has increased women's skills to be similar to those of men.
Looking Ahead
But the fans are hopeful that this year's NCAA tournament success will win respect for women's basketball and draw more fans to the Joyce Center for women's games.
"I don't think there's enough students who come out and participate. They really don't," said Smallwood. "And I hope this will change their minds and more of them will come out."
Pyle agreed that this year's championship contest performance should cause an increased enthusiasm for the team on campus.
"I think because of us getting to the Final Four, there'll be more and more student support. I think there was when the JACC sold out for the UConn game. There was great spirit and we just need to continue it over the year," she said. "I think our dorm did a great job. We had a big sign in our lobby for Ericka and Alicia and we're just really proud of them."
Erin Piroutek contributed to this report.
All News Stories for Monday, April 2, 2001
