When I came to college I had tons of things to look forward to. Things like getting trained for my career, meeting tons of new people (my inner extrovert speaking) and learning how to live away from my parents. One of the things I was excited for most was college sports. I grew up watching the University of Kansas games on TV and I loved watching how crazy Allen Fieldhouse was. Every college game was like that though, Texas, OU, A&M, Ohio State, USC, you name it. Even the small schools would still fill pack the house and go crazy for their teams.

Coming to an NAIA school I knew the crowds wouldn't be near as big or the games of near as high quality as they are in the Big 12 or ACC, but I was still excited to get behind my school and my friends. When I learned of the TP game here at JBU I was psyched. This place has to be crazy about their sports right? I mean look at this. . .

This happens at the first game of every season. Also, the first soccer game of my freshman year was JBU's first game under the lights, which was their most attended soccer game ever. Safe to say these two games made me think JBU would be the perfect place for me, and I'm sure they had the same effect on the new athletes.

However, these games proved to be outliers. As the semester progresses the support dwindles very quickly. Classes ratchet up and the conversation quickly goes from "when are you getting to the game?" to "Sorry I've got (insert some excuse)?" People quickly stop coming, stop caring, and I think it has a detrimental effect on our school as a whole.

Over the past two weeks at chapel the conversation has been about unity, about coming together. Many different examples have been provided, such as bringing your suite together, your classmates, or even those people you see sitting alone at lunch. Those are all great things to do, no doubt, but why isn't there also a push to get behind our friends at their games?

When I grew up sports were my life. My dream was always to play basketball at the school God called me to be at. While that currently isn't how it turned out, that dream became reality for the students here. All the athletes at our school have worked their whole lives to get here. I remember when I was playing there was always that comforting moment looking up in the stands and seeing my family up there cheering me on, I always had that support line behind me. The players here don't have that every night. Coming from places as far as Houston, Colombia, Mexico and Minnesota, our players don't have the luxury of their family always being in the stands for them.

Aren't we supposed to be family for each other though as a student body? Our school preaches unity and urges us to practice unity, but how can you claim to live out unity without supporting the people around you? It's a very hypocritical stance to take. A pretty frequent complaint I here from people at JBU is, "Well the athletes don't make an effort to get to know us. If I had friends that were athletes I would definitely support the teams more." If you haven't noticed, the athletes don't have the time normal students do. They have practices every afternoon, morning workouts, team meetings, coaches meetings, games, road trips, oh and they still have to keep up with the same homework the rest of us do. The onus isn't on them to get to know us, it's on us to reach out to them. Make them feel welcome and support them as our family. Because isn't that what we are supposed to be?

And to those people who always claim to have homework during games; you mean to tell me you are so stupendously efficient with your time that you absolutely need that hour of your day to get all of your work done? If you claim you are then you're lying. If the athletes have time to accomplish all of the things they do, you have an hour a week to support them.

So, get out and cheer them on. Whether it's Alyssa Arnold getting another kill, Kelvin scoring another goal, or Marquis Waller getting another highlight reel dunk, get out there and go crazy. Who knows, if enough of us do it they can stop talking about unity in chapel, because we will be busy living it out.