By

The Macalester vs. St. Thomas soccer game will be on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the stadium. We know what you are thinking. “I have so much homework on Sundays, I simply cannot make the time to go to a soccer game. If only the game was on Friday.” It may surprise you to know that the St. Thomas women’s soccer team has refused to play Macalester on Friday or Saturday nights because our fans are too rowdy.Let’s put aside the St. Thomas cowardice for a moment and consider that this is a competition between two Division III schools. Between two women’s teams. Face it, not that many people are going to show up. We know that, in general, more people go to men’s games than women’s games. We don’t condone it but we’re realists. The St. Thomas women’s team should be excited by the prospect of playing in front of an boisterous and lively crowd-no matter who they are cheering for.

Changing the game schedule reduces a small crowd to a smaller crowd. It is a shame that the schedule was changed to make it harder to support our sports teams. The Mac community should be proud of our athletes and proud of crowds.

e can’t change the game schedule, we can’t change our syllabi, but we can show up on Sunday. If the women win on Sunday they’ll keep their chances alive to place in the top 4 in the MIACC to make the playoffs. We can show St. Thomas that our raucous crowds are not motivated by alcohol after a hard week in the library and we’re not even motivated by our rivalry with the purple and white team. We are motivated by school spirit. We like to spell words, drink blood and smoke crack on Fridays and on Sundays, just so long as our girls are playing.