By Mac Moore
We just don’t seem to care. It’s not our fault. We are all busy. School and work, work and school; the days are filled so quickly. We have to make very smart decisions about how we spend our free time.
The Lady Cavs’ basketball team is finishing up their second straight season of decimating the East Jayhawk Conference. This team is sensational. So far in the season the team is 22-1 and 9-0 at home. Average attendance of home games: 168. The team is also not the exception; they are more like the rule. This college’s athletics program, as a whole, is one of the most consistent junior college programs in the country.
These teams can’t get the support they need. Let’s rephrase that, the support they deserve. They definitely don’t need our support. In actuality, attendance is not a necessity for this program. The school is lucky to be so properly funded that it in no way requires ticket sales to equip its teams with top notch facilities and resources. Money is not the issue. It just might be nice to demonstrate school spirit and unity.
This goes way past school athletics. We are the most dismissive campus ever. Not that we are out and out rude, but that middle C in the JCCC acronym should not be taken literally. There is no sense of “community” at this college.
Everybody seems to be so wrapped up in their own things. The nursing kids know the other nursing kids and the EMT students know the other EMT students. The lines are drawn by fields of study. Even the undeclared students seem to just keep hanging out with the same kids from high school.
It is to be expected. This is a commuter college. We drive here, complain about the parking spaces that are actually abundant (we just hate walking), go to class and then go back home. The lack of dorms which most colleges offer seems to have created a drive-thru education that has eradicated socialization on campus.
“Hi, I would like an associate degree, one internship and a couple acting classes on the side. Yeah, and can you hold the mustard on that?”
“Yes, that will be $10 grand, please pull to the next window.”
Can we change this? Is there a way to make the student body care? This is a question we at The Ledger have faced. Our cohorts for JCAV and ECAV have faced the same. ECAV DJs broadcast show clips in the Down Under every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. They ask, “Have you heard of ECAV?” As it turns out, no one has. Occasionally interests are peaked, but usually the discussion is met with the scurried walk as the student attempts to avoid the pitch of listening to the college’s own radio station.
The sad reality is we probably can’t change this. An overwhelming majority of the college will continue to use this school as a 7-11 education, in and out.
But you don’t have to. Yeah, you, the person currently reading this paper, skimming through articles before you leave this issue on a Food Court table (don’t you dare throw it in the trash). Start caring, start talking to people in your classes. Quit making tweets that criticize other classmates because they actually try to be friendly in this atmosphere of dismissiveness.
Contact Mac Moore, sports editor, at mmoore82@jccc.edu.