With just over 8,000 seats in Hofheinz Pavilion, it should be easy to fill the seats with students. | Justin Tijerina/The Cougar
Since the beginning of football season, head coach Tom Herman has been asking for one thing every week. Last Saturday, he finally got his wish: the stadium was sold out.
Students, alumni and fans — 42,159 of them, to be exact — filled the stadium, leading to the largest crowd in TDECU’s stadium history and only the second ever sellout of the venue.
The fans were rewarded for their attendance with a thrilling 35-34 victory over a conference rival in arguably the biggest and best game in the stadiums history.
As the season winds down and with just one regular-season home game left, the push for sellouts will start to die down, but pursuit for fans attention is just starting to pick up in another area.
The Cougar basketball teams are set to begin their seasons, but if the men’s exhibition game is any sign, fan attendance looks to be slim again this season.
Football has seen consistently good turnouts this year, and that support for the team needs to overflow into the basketball season.
With the men’s team, head coach Kelvin Sampson returns with many players and he has added much needed depth to the roster, allowing him to finally run the offensive and defensive schemes he wants, and they look to be a much improved unit this year.
Head coach Ronald Hughey and the women’s team return five seniors and 10 upper-classmen altogether, and he is looking to get the program back on track this year.
Hofheinz seats 8,479 people, roughly the amount of students who live on campus.
This football season, students have consistently been filling their section, with around 7,000 to 8,000 in the seats every game. That number alone for the basketball games would be enough to almost sell out Hofheinz.
Even getting one quarter of the students who live on campus going to the games would fill the student section inside Hofheinz and provide the jolt of energy that place needs.
All the teams that compete for UH are working hard every day to get better and they represent the University each time they take the court or field.
So when football season is over, don’t feel like you’ve done your job, support the men’s and women’s basketball teams and every other team that plays on campus.
We are the pride of this University, and we need to show pride in the students who fight for us.
— The Cougar Editorial Board
The Staff Editorial reflects the opinions of The Cougar Editorial Board. All other opinions, commentaries and cartoons reflect only the opinion of the author. Opinions expressed in The Cougar do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Houston or the students as a whole.
