The women’s tennis team usually has about 10 fans. When we played the nationally ranked UC Santa Cruz team at Whitman, the Santa Cruz fans out numbered the Whitman fans. Distance from Santa Cruz to Bratton
Tennis Center: 826 miles. Distance from Jewett to Bratton Tennis Center: about 826 feet.
As varsity athletics improve at Whitman due to better facilities, recruiting and funding the reality remains that their success depends on the greater student body. Sports, especially volleyball, soccer and basketball are here to give them student respite from academics and college life. It is the fans more than the athletes who are supposed to reap the benefits of one more Friday or Saturday night activity. Athletics are something to unite a school. If students do not enjoy coming to games and matches, then athletics will continue to divide rather than unite the school.

I knew there would not be tons of raving tennis junkies when I came to Whitman.   I like that here tennis is something that I do and not what I am. I like the opportunities I have to talk about Descartes, Environmental policy and microbes more than I would enjoy cheering fans. I love tennis enough to not need fans… a lot of fans at least. But I understood the choice I made when I came to Whitman.
I do not think Whitman students understand what they are missing. Compare Whitman with Gonzaga University that has a basketball team that routinely performed well at the NCAA tournament for the last six years. The energy at games is unearthly. What could be any old university has become a place well known for its invigorated atmosphere that may centered around basketball but has spreads into other fields.   Applications are up and the school is expanding.
There have been tastes of what athletics could be at Whitman. At the men’s soccer game against top ranked Whitworth, the Whitman crowds were hardly deterred by the rain. Rumors of a pregame keg and a chance at the NCAA National tournament brought 500 fans out. Cold and wet, I still stayed through the two overtimes because the intensity of the screaming and yelling is something that cannot be found very often in Walla Walla.

But even the next weekend the game attendance went back down to 200. In general Whitman students are not interested in being varsity athletic fans.
But what changed for that one soccer game? Do games need to be better publicized?   Do we need cheerleaders (I hope not) or maybe a pep band (there is one in the works right now) or a fan club? Does the Whitman Missionary mascot alienate people? Or is it not used to its full potential? The favorite question for female athletes to ask is “Do people not come to my games because I am a woman?”
The concern the college now faces as it attempts to revitalize its traditionally unsuccessful athletic program is who is responsible for addressing these questions? At a larger university school life often already centers on athletics. At Whitman we have to start from scratch. Much of the responsibility falls on student athletes to get people to games, matches and events. Many student athletes resent how this added responsibility conflicts with their commitment to training, practice and competition.
But if these questions continue to go unresolved and games continue to go unattended, then the question changes to if athletics really have a place at Whitman. I hope so. Being a fan is the most socially acceptable place I can be loud, crazy and obnoxious. But Whitman has a long way to go before it can say that athletics are worth their while at Whitman. Until then I will continue playing tennis and thanking the few fans I have.