The apathy displayed by Penn State students toward basketball is often sickening.
On Thursday night, in the game against Northwestern, it wasn’t the students who disappointed – it was the courtside crowd.
The placement of the first row of the student section directly behind what is often the over-50 crowd is questionable, but these are the cards the students were dealt.
My friends and I showed up early and let Northwestern players know we were going to be loud. During the game, a man of about 60 years seated courtside turned to me with a dollar bill and said, “I’ll pay you a dollar to stop clapping and making all that noise.”
Later in the game, he told us to “knock it off” after our taunting was apparently the reason a Northwestern player drained a jumper.
Am I nitpicking? Maybe. But in my opinion, this exchange perfectly sums up the apathetic light in which most hold basketball at Penn State.
Can you even fathom an Indiana fan telling the students to tone down their noise in a conference showdown with Michigan? Stay loud, students!
Daniel LaPinta
senior-engineering
