Twelve Players in the Huddle: The Power of the Student Body

I have waved my arms frantically imagining that I am going to distract the shooter enough to make him miss (as demonstrated on the right). I have screamed as loud as I can to make sure the quarterback cannot tell his teammates what play they are running. I have proudly chanted profanities at referees who make calls that hurt my team, even if they are both correct, and obvious. I am a loyal member of the University of Southern California student body, and a faithful attendee of athletic events. It is people like myself, the students that are the ones shouting, stomping, and making the arena rattle from the floorboards to the rafters with excitement and passion. While students at large universities are often segregated into different colleges spread across vast campuses, they have a common ground in their support of athletics. Ryan McGee of ESPN described it as “the only place on earth where, for a few hours, Greeks, geeks, seniors, freshmen, wannabe millionaires and soon-to-be-dropouts can stand shoulder to shoulder and throat to throat with one common, noble belief.” What results from this unity is a powerful and vocal mass that often succeeds in affecting the outcome of the game being played. Though many factors affect the final score, the student section is the single greatest fixture of college athletics, and is the most important cause of home-field advantage.

The power of the student section in college football is undeniable. The field is a constant size and shape, and both teams run on the same turf in the same weather conditions, but only one team has the power of students on their side. When Adrian Peterson and the University of Oklahoma visited the University of Oregon, the power of the Ducks student section felt “like some sort of crazy torture in the movies.” However, it should be acknowledged that Autzen Stadium seats a mere 54,000 leaving little room for opposing fans who might otherwise travel en masse to help balance the atmosphere. But even at home where a team might play in front of a hundred thousand friendly faces, it is the students that stick out as Georgia State head football coach Bill Curry states his belief that “college football is still about the students. On Saturday they remind us of that.” Texas A&M felt that their student section was so important to their home success, they named it the "12th man" and went on to trademark the term. The students there feel so involved in the outcome of the game, and so vital to every play on the field they have a saying that “when the team scores, everybody scores.” While some opposing teams do transport a number of students and fans to games, they rarely are given a solid block of seating, or find themselves crammed into the outer reaches of the stadiums. Though the visiting fans may try their best, their efforts go largely unnoticed or are drowned out by the enthusiastic home supporters. The concentrated mass of dedicated students makes the difference between playing in front of an audience, and playing in front of a home crowd.

The repercussions of home advantage are felt beyond a team’s performance in the statistic books, and banners hung in the rafters. In college basketball, home-court advantage is one of the biggest factors in helping sports books decide where to place the point spread for games. Oddsmakers such as Jeff Sagarin, the creator of some of the world’s most famous computer rankings, have established home court advantage as worth 3.5 to 4.5 points, with Sagarin’s model calculating a 3.94 point advantage for the resident club. A team like Duke pushes this to the extreme with oddsmakers like Pete Korner of the Las Vegas Sports Club swinging the point spread as much as 6 or 8 points when Duke takes the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Many would agree that the defining feature of Cameron is the hundreds of students decked out in their finest blue and white paint screaming wildly at opposing players known collectively as the “Cameron Crazies” (as exemplified in the picture on the left). The effectiveness of this group is truly stunning. Despite playing nearly twice as many home games as neutral site games (1,025 and 541 respectively) Duke has lost almost the same number in both situations (185 and 160 respectively). Similarly, when the University of Southern California built the Galen Center and brought USC basketball back onto campus and closer to its student base, the team responded posting a record of 38-9 in their new home, the third best record in the Pacific-10 conference over that span, despite it being a structure that “offers no hardships” to opposing teams. However Tim Floyd would disagree and point out one major factor in that the USC crowds “can be pretty rambunctious.” In fact, the only team that has regularly beaten USC at the Galen Center has been their cross-town rival the UCLA Bruins, but in return the Trojans have found success at Pauley Pavilion. This example highlights the mitigating factors of distance, as once the matchup extends beyond city lines home court advantage becomes solidified, even if the two teams involved play each other regularly. The energy and emotion of the crowd creates many cold welcomes, and derives from the size and dedication of the student fans because the power of the students to affect a team’s performance is unmatched by any other factor.

I think the most exciting part is that the trend is growing, as more teams in smaller sports find active student sections waiting to cheer them on to victory. The University of Southern California is home to the 7th man club, the student cheering section that makes men’s tennis matches at USC’s Marks Tennis Stadium a boisterous affair. The self-proclaimed goals of this group are to “promote the success of SC tennis and instill a sense of pride in one of SC's oldest and most prolific athletic programs” as well as create “an unrivaled home field advantage.” Courts are standardized, balls and rackets strictly regulated, but only the weather and the student fans are uncontrollable factors, and while both teams receive an equal challenge on the meteorological front, only one benefits from the exceptionally vocal mass in the stands. Missouri University got into the act by encouraging student support at swimming and diving events with the creation of the student cheering section appropriately named “H-ZOU-O.” The group’s president, Kelly Goldthorpe, believes that this student cheer group will help the Missouri aquatic teams “stay motivated and continue excelling at their sports.” Goldthorpe worked closely with members of the men’s and women’s swim teams to give them what they felt would bring a competitive advantage. The formation of this group also coincides with Michael Phelps' incredible performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, an event that helped bring recognition to smaller sports when the United States came up short in some more prominent events. H-ZOU-O helps bring some of that excitement back to the athletes that hope to compete for their home nation on the world stage someday, and it gives some recognition for their hard work. Even in sports that are not as glamorized, the fans and more importantly the athlete’s consider a strong base of student support to be a fundamental part of achieving top performance.

However, there may be other reasons why the fans have such a dramatic effect on home-field advantage. A study that looked at English Premier League matches found that the referees might be just as affected by the crowd pressure as the opposing players. Ryan Boyko, one of the researchers, summarized the impact saying, “the potential is there for a game to be altered because of factors that subconsciously affect the referee.” He discovered that “Individual referees and the size of the crowd present are variables that affect the home field advantage.” This means the fans have a three ways to affect the outcome of the game. They can pump up the home team, discourage the visiting team, or simply intimidate the referees into acquiescing to their demands for calls. It follows that the student section, the most dedicated group of fans a college program has is the most beneficial facet of playing at home. The benefits of supporting a strong student section extend beyond a schools athletic program. A happy student now is more likely to become a generous booster for the program later, so it makes sense to give them access to premier seating and make them an integral part of the sporting event experience. Another benefit of increasing student interest in smaller sports may help increase revenue as the program can capitalize on this interest through sales of t-shirts and other spirit items. Thus even beyond the simple mental trauma a clever, energized, and raucous student section is sure to deliver to opposing players, it brings an opportunity for schools to promote hard working student-athletes. I love standing shoulder to shoulder with my classmates and showing our appreciation for the action, excitement, and entertainment the sports teams provide. It is time bring the students to half-court, midfield, the net, and let them carry the team and players past the exhaustion, the frustration, and on their shoulders (and voices) to victory.