On Friday nights, most the Upper School students pack the student section as the Lions football team runs onto the field. For more three hours, students yell and cheer on their classmates, hoping to get the win.
On a Tuesday night though when the Lions volleyball team plays, few fans are in attendance.
For almost all sports, attendance at events can improve. Lots of sports at the school have consistently dominant seasons yet attendance does not change much year after year.
For SuperFanMan and volleyball captain Owen Ackerman, trying to bring attention to underappreciated sports has been a big area of emphasis for his time in the spirt group.
“Since my sophomore year, I’ve made an effort to be friends with (Hockaday volleyball players) and have them come to our games,” Ackerman said. “We’ll go to their games, and we know fans can help give us confidence and energy in these games. And, it’s good team bonding as well for both of us.
In addition to going to Hockaday games, Ackerman helped Assistant Athletic Director Joshua Friesen get SPC Championship for volleyball at the school this year, hoping for a good attendance.
“Last spring, I went into (Friesen’s) office and I said ‘I know you probably don’t have much say in this, but if there’s any way we could host SPC that would mean so much to this team and to the program,’” Ackerman said. “He told me there’s really no chance because we have to host cross country. But then at this meeting, he somehow worked some magic, and he pulled me to his office one day in late May, and he was like, ‘Hey, by the way, we’re hosting SPC.’”
However, Ackerman understands that football does generate a lot of hype and buzz for the sports scene on campus and that attendance for them is always higher.
“It’s hard in the fall to compete with football,” Ackerman said. “I mean, everyone loves football, I love football and football is very entertaining to watch. And for girls too, like, girls want to dress up for these themes. We kind of get a mix of both worlds, because in some past years, we’ve had times where volleyball is the only sport on a Friday sometimes, and those games usually attend really well.”
For Ackerman, games with lots of fans in attendance like his Casady games both sophomore and junior year have been some of his most memorable, along with the SPC championship games.
For junior water polo player Oliver Geheb, attendance can also be a little lacking for his games. The water polo team has dominated competition and has won TISCA (Texas Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association) for the past two years.
“It’s different,“ Geheb said. “Most people like running and jumping and stuff like that, but water polo (doesn’t have that), and a lot of people kind of shy away from different things. We also don’t have any actual home games.”
In combination with more growth through clips online, a new athletic complex looks to give water polo a home. Football has always had their stadium, basketball has always had their courts and track and field their track.
“The pool can (give a reason) to watch a game,” Junior Kevin Hong said, “(It can bring) the pre-game before the game.”
Additionally, Geheb hopes that more people will attend with the help of the current SuperFanMen such as senior Wyatt Loehr.
Loehr played water polo in the 2023-2024 season and has proven a useful way for there to be hype around water polo. Yet there is only so much one person can do for a whole program. For there to truly be growth, interest around the sport itself needs to be cultivated.
“Something that could help would be to get more quality clips from some of the players from our team so people can see that water polo is a fun sport to watch,” Geheb said, “They are cool goals that happen, if people see cool things happen at the game then more people are going to want to come.”
Recently, the water polo team conquered the state championship once again with a dominant showing. Throughout the whole TISCA tournament the Lions faced no challenge, but once again there was barely any sort of student support. This has been the third time the team has conquered the state of Texas, and the third time their stands remain vacant while doing so.
