Kragthorpe: My life in the student section — bonding, singing and dressing up in a hot dog suit

Utah Valley University’s basketball team led New Mexico State by four points at halftime and the UCCU Center security staff started thinking ahead. Troy Hulse walked over to the student section and cautioned, “Win or lose, you can’t go on the court. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

In my continuing study of the sports fan experience in Utah, it hit me: I’d never watched a college basketball game from the student section. I graduated from Utah State without even knowing the words to any school songs.

While attending a game at each of northern Utah’s five Division I schools in February, observing the students’ behavior, I went further by blending into UVU’s Den and Weber State’s Destruction Zone. This explains how I found myself in Ogden, dressed like a hot dog.

Being part of these groups helped me understand the sociology of a crowd and how fans want to feel as though they’re influencing the outcome, via some combination of exhorting the home team and disrupting the other guys. They want to get into the game.

That’s where the usher’s friendly warning came into play. Nobody wanted a replay of four years ago in Orem, where UVU students rushed the court after the Wolverines’ overtime victory and were caught in the middle of a fight started by two New Mexico State players who were suspended.

So there would be no court-storming, even after we were swept up in an intense, back-and-forth game as UVU rallied for an 86-79 win, handing the Aggies their first Western Athletic Conference loss. The reward came soon after the buzzer when UVU coach Mark Pope walked across the court, raised his fist and told us, “Good job, guys.”

Students’ attendance varies widely from school to school and game to game in Utah, amid their other interests and priorities. UVU lacks much of a Division I athletic tradition and students haven’t grown up following the Wolverines. But they responded well to BYU’s historic visit in November and created a good atmosphere vs. New Mexico State, and students are becoming more attached to UVU athletics. ”It’s now hard to walk through campus without noticing a student wearing a Den shirt,” said Kailey Kennedy, UVU’s spirit chair.

BYU students packed the Marriott Center from top to bottom for last Saturday’s game vs. highly ranked Gonzaga, but that’s not always the case. Utah’s MUSS supports football far more than basketball.

Even at Utah State, where basketball became a huge part of the campus culture in the Stew Morrill era, most of the 4,000 allotted student tickets usually go unused. Total attendance was fewer than 6,000 (during Presidents Day weekend) for a recent game vs. Top 25 opponent Nevada, after USU athletic director John Hartwell tweeted a plea for fans to show up.

Weber State, historically a commuter school, has struggled to engage students. The Destruction Zone is designed to change that. The group has numbered anywhere from a couple of dozen to a few hundred. Seeing about 10 rows occupied behind him last week, front-row resident Nate Arrington said, “Pretty good for a Thursday.”

Administrators moved the WSU students to seats on the baseline, right above the visitors bench. The DZ’s location encourages heckling. The Wildcat students might be too preoccupied with the other team, but that’s part of their job description. They made fun of Eastern Washington coach Shantay Legans’ first name, making me wonder how they would have treated New Mexico State coach Chris Jans, who was fired from his previous job for inappropriate behavior in a bar.

Student sections brush up to a line of decency and occasionally cross it. USU’s former administrators apologized to BYU in 2011 after the Hurd taunted Brandon Davies. That response inadvertently may have caused some dropoff in Aggie student interest in subsequent years.

In Weber State’s case, the DZ denizens also are serious about supporting their team. As guard Dusty Baker went to the free-throw line, Brinlee Saunders reminded us, “Dusty likes it quiet.”

In the second half, with Eastern Washington shooting at that basket, the volume went up and Jen Bowen invited me down to the court. Posting the “3” cards on the railing for the Wildcats’ 3-point shots already gave me some degree of involvement, but now I would get the full experience, joining the women appearing from behind the Curtain of Distraction.

The effort to disrupt opponents’ free-throw shooting comes from Arizona State, where Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps once wore a Speedo. That attire, thankfully, was not among my options. I went with the hot dog suit, featuring a huge glob of mustard.

It didn’t work. In a tight game, as the curtain was pulled back and I jumped, waved and shouted from 20 feet away, the Eagles went 11 of 11 from the line. Clearly, I should have switched to the inflatable suit with a painted-on diaper — anything to rattle those guys.

Feeling defeated after the Wildcats’ 75-70 loss ended their nine-game winning streak, I hung up my costume, grabbed my coat and trudged through the tunnel into the parking lot. Having expended a lot of energy in a losing effort, I went in search of postgame food. Something, you know, other than a hot dog.