What happened to spirit?

By Chris Kelly

It was 60 years ago this month that the Santa Clara Broncos held the Orange Bowl trophy high. So high everyone in America knew our little Californian university. That's right. Santa Clara won the Orange Bowl. And the 1937 Sugar Bowl.

Our name was talked about on the same sports radio shows as national powerhouses Kentucky, LSU, Florida and our foes who used the same letters to abbreviate their establishment prior to 1985 -- USC. This Saturday, some of those players who led us to a 21-13 victory over the favored Kentucky Wildcats in Miami will be back on campus to participate in the annual alumni pasta feed.

These athletes are a reminder of how deep our reputation and tradition run. They also represent how far we have fallen from the pedestal of athletic and social greatness.

Let us describe our current athletic state. We lost our football team in the spring of 1992. We haven't won a WCC title in basketball since the 1996-7 season. We pride ourselves on a sport that is becoming popular in the United States, soccer, just as our team loses its powerhouse reputation. Our pep band has dwindled down to a dozen or so generous souls who give us the little bit of the rah-rah atmosphere that most everyone hopes to experience at some point during his or her college years.

I am not trying to blame our athletes, coaches or students who would rather ski, work or make another cocktail instead of attending sporting events, but I think that there is something missing from this university that used to make the Santa Clara community a close-knit unit. Some people call what I am referring to "school spirit."

Call this indescribable energy what you will, and you can assign it your own value, but it undoubtedly used to exist here in the valley. How many of you attended a Santa Clara hockey game at Shark's Ice this year? Why not? They even have a bar in the arena where you can watch the game.

The same students who crowded around radios during the Orange Bowl in 1950 most definitely would have found the trip to see the Broncos play the Dons in the city last week, a great way to get out and have a good time.

In contrast, our current students would rather order-in pizza and watch a movie that they have already seen 15 times. Lately, our basketball atmosphere has been decent, and it will be again tonight when we face Gonzaga.

However, I cannot help but think that even though many would say we appear to be taking steps in the right direction, we have strayed so far in the wrong direction that Santa Clara will never be the same as it was, or even comparable to the mid-90s when the second-seeded Arizona Wildcats were stunned by a pimply, five-foot nothing, future MVP guard from north of the border in the NCAA tourney. I'm not sure what exactly it will take to bring our student body back together.

It may take the revival of football, a dynamite basketball team like they have been producing in Spokane for the past decade or it could simply be a change in attitude towards how this university's social events operate.

I know Dan Coonan and Co. are working to re-create a sports-friendly atmosphere and I appreciate their efforts, but I think the problem lies deeper than the lacking electricity at sporting events.

I believe in some manner the university's mind set has changed for the worst and the social "school spirit" that this university once had is lost in our generation's re-evaluation of what is important about the college experience.

In other words, studying and partying should not be the only components of our lives.

Let's leave room for sports, creativity and everything that makes Santa Clara a great community.

Chris Kelly is a senior English major.