By Anthony Gannon
Sports Editor
Bonaventure athletics have had a rough early showing so far in their pursuit of maintaining the momentum from last year’s basketball success and subsequent windfall of pro-Bona publicity.
Well Bonaventure fans don’t need to be worried.
Conference play is always where Bonaventure teams prove their mettle and this year the buildup to basketball season should be seen on the court and off the court.
Fans should take to the games with a wolfish fervor. Otherwise once we get to the point where games are in the Reilly Center, we won’t be as jacked up to cheer on the Bonnies as we could be.
There’s been solid attendance at soccer games so far, but few rowdies outside of student’s grabbing their Bona wraps and parent’s checking up on the progress of their children’s collegiate athletic careers.
Let’s make an effort to show up as Bonnie enthused as possible and give our team’s a boost to help their early seasons’ struggles.
This week the Bonnies’ athletic teams are traveling away, so we get our weekend off to rest our throats and take in some good pigskin action.
If you do need your Bonaventure athletics fix for the weekend, gander down to the rugby fields sporadically throughout Saturday to try and catch the Rugby Alumni game.
The rugby teams are the newest additions to be named the Bonnies and their alumni games are always entertaining.
So at least in one way you can flex your fan muscle this weekend and get the word out that SBU is as hostile on the field as they are welcoming off of it.
Much like our “flagship” teams in men’s and women’s basketball. We, as fans, face an uncertain future in regards to our legacy as fans in this new post-44 world. What if, just what if, the basketball teams have a tough time rebounding from the effort they put forth last year and can’t deal with the increase in competition right away?
Are we, as bleeders of brown and white, going to allow ourselves to start skipping games and disregarding when opponents come to the Reilly because we’ll probably lose? No. That’s not what it means to be a Bonnie.
The early difficulties of the Bonnies so far have made it difficult to build any fan momentum in regards to what we feel like cheering for, but it could be worse, we could be Buffalo. (That’s a little Big Four trash talk.)
Next week the men’s soccer team plays their home opener against St. Francis at 1.
For years, students have been passing through the hallowed halls of the Reilly Center to scream their support for the Bonnies.
It’s time to declare ourselves as the Wolfpack. The wolfpack will rise again this year to support our A-10 champion Bonnies, the first group of students who are able to do so.
There comes a time in every Bonnie’s life where they must decide which side of the Wolfpack fence they fall on.
You can be reserved, discreet underhanded in your ability to support the nature of the program, or you can take the first step forward on to the risers in the Reilly and try to scream the roof off with the kind of effort Jeff Hanneman would be proud of.
The Bonnies’ bandwagon will be overflowing this year. So the best thing you can do is find a seat early on and prove you belong in the student section once the tip goes up Nov. 3 against Mansfield.
Otherwise that’s not Bonaventure.
