No brain surgery here:  The #1 way to improve the atmosphere is to win.

Two things first: 1.  this is not intended to be a slam at Mr. Harper who I have never met and fully intend to give the benefit of the doubt for some time. 2. Getting student participation is most important and likely more important than pleasing aging alums.

The apathy and outright negativity noted in the article certainly comes from the response from many of the older fans most of whom sit at the games with little noise or cheering and who certainly sit there muttering under their breath about all things Duquesne basketball (AJP, concessions, losing, the coach, etc.).  But improving the atmosphere is only a small part of the problem (as FAM said - not brain surgery) and improving the culture for those of us getting older comes largely from the many years of frustration and the feeling that we didn't matter - either as alums or season ticket holders.  As a member of both classes (though as someone who actually can get loud at times) the frustration and lack of concern is present.  If you are going to lose season after season or at least most seasons, half time entertainment is only a small part of the culture.  Winning does an awful lot to enhance culture.

"You can make a great game even better and you can take a bad game and make it not so bad by some of the things you do for fans,” Harper said. “That’s how we’re going to focus and go about it. There’s a script for a game and a script for attending a game that we want to have a really strong rhythm to. We want to make sure people, regardless of outcome, feel really good about the value they receive, the experience they have and that they’re valued as fans. That’s going to be a big focal point.”

All true.  But I've sat through many of the half time events from kid teams playing basketball to someone balancing China on their head while riding a bike.  All great efforts.  But it’s the “regardless of outcome” and “feel really good about the value” part that stops me.  Yes, having fresh concessions and some variety help.  The best value for my dollar is a positive outcome to the game.  Fine, focus on this and more, after you focus on winning.  Consistently.  Winning.  Winning will bring fans.  Especially to see a ranked team.  Especially to see a guy consistently hitting 3’s.  Especially to see a much better opponent than some of the non-conference ones we’ve seen lately.
 
Better parking, avoiding conflicts with the Pens or other events at Consol…those help too.  But only after the focus is on winning.  There’s a lot to improve and a lot to change after we change the ability to win consistently (and I don’t mean beating Pitt for those obsessed with that – sure, beat them – but lose more than you win, don’t make the tournament and who really cares?)
 
Students want someone they can relate to in their experience. There is a disconnect in that we hear about Duquesne’s heyday and the glory days, but students kind of scratch their heads and ask ‘What happened?
 
Do what needs to be done to get the students there.  Winning would help to give them a reason to identify with the school.  Contests, games, entertainment all can help too.  Are there other free things that could help?  History won’t – they want their own history, their own memories, their own kind of fun.  They don’t want to identify with me.  Hopefully there are younger staff members on hand to do this but why not make sure by hiring a recent graduate or two from the past 4-5 years who has had some success working for a while and maybe who doesn’t much care about the team (but does care about the school) to come on with the job of getting that interest back?  If they don’t have a positive feel for basketball they may have the knowledge needed to attract others who feel the same way.
 
And do what needs to be done to get young people – Pre-College, maybe even preschool – to the game and interested.  In that case entertainment can be key.  And tossing T-shirts is nice – get them to the young kids in the stands.  Alums/season ticket holders can help there.  If you are 55 years old and get a T-shirt tossed to you why not give it to the kid in the row behind you?  Do you really need another one? 

There’s more that should be said and hopefully Mr. Harper and his team already know all this stuff and are going to do a great job (I’d love to see the full report).   Even the biggest critic on this board wants to see him, the coaches and the team succeed. 


 

Mulder well said!!!  If you have no chance of ever winning or showing you can pull a big time upset why would anyone show interest. One thing that needs to be done is selling the A-10 to fans in Pittsburgh and that becomes a bigger issue with hosting the A-10 at Consol next year. I'm not sure most people in this area can name 5 teams in our league.

CLK wrote:

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/duquesne/2016/03/02/Improving-lacking-atmosphere-becomes-top-priority-for-Duquesne-athletic-director-Dave-Harper/stories/201603020075

This is Bull S#&T !!  Ron had sell-outs every year, even his first against RI, ( I was there) !  Some people said at the time,  he won with "gimmicks"??  Hey, he won and fans sometimes  filled up the Palumbo.  Against Xavier, it was a sellout and we upset them.  The next year the Consol didn't look too empty when Ron's Dukes crushed Dayton??  Ferry want to say what a bad shape we were in before he got here? Really??  The new AD must be dumber than the last.  Just  win  "and they will come".  Keep Ferry, and maybe, you can hope to get some trained seals to balance a ball at half time, and it still won't be enough ??   Mind you,  the heart of this article said do anything but win??  Maybe we need a new AD?    

Last edited by NapaDuke (3/03/2016 1:54 am)

Not that this needs stated but - case in point - had my usual two tickets to the Fordham game (though mostly I've been going alone) but decided I didn't want to trek down to AJP and fight the cold and find parking etc. but mostly because I just didn't feel good about the game and didn't want to sit through another poor effort.  Unfortunately I was correct.  It turned out to be my best decision this year.  Winning games will bring people to fill the stands.  Hell, a good effort may do it too.  But winning makes my old high school gym look like Pauley Pavilion at the height of John Wooden's many victories (or Cameron under Mike K.).

I see this as a problem with the administration, not the coaches. It would be interesting if the new AD went to the past few coaches, or even back to John Carroll and had a frank discussion with them about their experiences at Duquesne. I'll be if he gets them to open up enough and analyzes what they say, he'll pinpoint specific experiences with how things are run here that each had that caused them to fail. Then he can fix that problem.

PhoenixRising2 wrote:

[


I have full trust in Dave Harper to turn this thing around. And right now, Ferry's seat is very, very hot.

I sort of do, but I am already on record, I  can't take this anymore!  I can't take another year of Ferry at max, a turnover and then another five year plan!  I just turned 50, and have not seen an NCAA tournament appearance since before I hit puberty. I just can't take it anymore.   I am tired of getting my hopes up and having them utterly crushed repeatedly!  I fear that if Ferry fails, this is it.  Harper is not going to get a good coach to come here, and he will fail as well.   Regardless of what you think of the man, Edgar's wife was told  that this job was a "coach killer" and "hopeless" over two decades ago!   And then I think it will be time to scrap the whole damn thing!
 

Dribble, I missed the comment made by the announcers during the Dayton game about Duquesne "now" having a "program", but a similar comment was made by the announcers during the Davidson game. They said something like "Duquesne has a program now - was in need of an overhaul when Ferry took over. I found a way to pass this on to Ron and said that announcers on these national telecasts always think they have to say something positive about teams no matter how bad the teams might be.