Fan Support could topple Salukis

Commentary

Tonight the lights will be on.

The stadium will be filled with raving lunatics wanting to destroy the other team, give them previously unknown information about their mothers and make them feel like Jerry Falwell walking into an ACLU meeting.

Saluki Pride will be on full display tonight, but with one interesting twist - it's not a basketball game.

McAndrew Stadium - depending on how well walk-up sales do - may see its largest crowd since the Challenger blew up. SIU sold 100 season tickets on Monday and Tuesday, and there is a chance of a capacity crowd if most of the student body finally figures out it can get into the games for free.

So one has to wonder - will the Salukis suffer simultaneous coronaries as they take the field?

SIU football is not used to fan support.

For a team that played in front of an average crowd of 6,177 fans last season, an extra 10,000 people could be traumatic. Their ears are not used to hearing a ton of crowd noise.

Will the unusually large and supportive crowd shock them into a win, electrocute them into defeat or simply cause hearing loss?

Head coach Jerry Kill is partial to the first hypothesis and said there are no negatives to having a large crowd - none.

But it's hard to ignore that nearly every member of this team is not used to playing in front of behemoth crowds.

For the young guys, of which there are many on what Kill said might be the youngest team in the country, 17,000 people is a lot more than an average high school football stadium holds.

And for the veterans, the shock of a capacity crowd could make them feel like strangers in their own stadium. They know what McAndrew usually looks like, have played in it at least a few years and may, over the years, have become shy and suspicious of large crowds.

To refute this theory - which I'm sure Kill thinks is worth as much as Enron's stock - Kill said even if the crowd added to the pressure on his team, they would be oblivious to it.

"We're too young to understand what pressure is," Kill said. "Hell, we just got off the bottle and diapers. When you just get out of the crib, you don't have to worry about any pressure."

Good point and very well put.

He may be right and I may be wrong. No one has ever accused me of being gifted with extraordinary intelligence. But teams used to playing in front of small crowds have been "shocked into losses" before.

Take the Montreal Expos.

Seriously, take them. Bud Selig will name his first great-great-great grandchild after you.

On July 15, 2001, 32,965 people filled Olympic Stadium - that's about 32,964 more than they're used to - for an interleague game against Boston. The Expos lost that game 8-5, victims of the Montreal "Oh my God, they care" syndrome.

On Sept. 10, 2000, the Cincinnati Bengals lost convincingly to a really bad Cleveland team. Some would blame that loss on the Bengals being a horrid team, but in 2000, they were better than the Browns.

The problem was that their stadium was filled with migrants from Cleveland who actually cared about the game. The Bengals were not used to attentive fans, and they were smacked over the head and paralyzed by enthusiasm.

In reality, the Salukis will be playing Kentucky Wesleyan, which plays in Division II. Losing is improbable, if not impossible.

Should SIU lose, it would be like the Chicago Bears losing to the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena League.

But it is possible.

The Patriots beat the Rams, SIU beat Georgia and the United States government did, once upon a time, balance the budget.

Miracles can happen, and should there be one tonight. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Reporter Michael Brenner can be reached at mbrenner@dailyegyptian.com