Otto's Army Wants YOU...To Vote Them Best Student Section In The Nation

You think the students aren’t die hards? My friends and I slept outside in Syracuse winters. For days at a time. We studied for exams sitting out there. We worked our butts off trying to make Otto’s Army relevant. We talked the student section up to anyone who would listen. We traveled to the Big East Tournament on our spring breaks instead of to anywhere warm. We went to Buffalo without anyone with a car and took a cab all over the place, again on spring break, because no one we were with had a car. We went to every Lacrosse game while we were there, we went to women’s lacrosse, men’s soccer, field hockey, volleyball, women’s basketball. We planned bus trips to Pittsburgh to watch the football team get crushed, and for basketball away games, and Lacrosse away games. We planned our class schedules to make sure we didn’t have classes during week night games. We coordinated the list of students, fought with people who didn’t like the rules, got three hours of sleep before the Villanova game and then stood for every minute between when we were woken up at 7am and when the game ended at 11. And, for me personally, this was only a week after a friend of mine died. We turned out for the NIT even though we were convinced that we were going to make the tournament. We sat in the lounge of our dorm room watching that same team lose to Clemson in a game they should have won.

Now that we’ve graduated we take time off of work or grad school to come back and watch the team, even the football team. We drive several hours round trip to see them. We buy lacrosse tickets a year in advance and figure that we will find a way to get there no matter what else we might be doing. We pay for OAA and look around for pirated streams and follow on twitter and text each other updates so we can follow the team even from far away. We stay home from parties and skip meetings and stop working on homework just to watch our team on a crappy computer feed. And it isn’t because this team is number 1. It’s because we sat through every game when this team was making the NIT and cheered hard anyway. The fact that they are number 1 is the bonus.

And I’m not talking about two of my closets friends. I’m talking about most of us (and no, not everyone I’m talking about is on TNIAAM either). You want to say the students and alums aren’t die hard? Let’s see how many of the locals would be at the game if they had to sleep outside in 15 degree weather for their seat. Again. I respect the locals. I fully believe that the crowd is amazing because of both of the locals and the students. Your dismissal of the student section only tells me that you didn’t know the best parts of our student section.

And as far as girls who “just want to get on TV”. I guess you apparently missed the fact that there are plenty of male fans who jump into any shot ESPN does. I can’t think of a single female fan I ever met who was there for any other reason than to watch basketball. And the fact that you bothered to add in that you “don’t have trouble getting women” doesn’t exactly recommend you.

Sorry for the essay, but you’re totally off base. I don’t know what student section you were a part of, but it doesn’t resemble the one I know.