Manoa Maniacs: Taking Responsibility

March 25, 2009 Manoa Maniacs: Taking Responsibility

The University of Hawaii at Manoa’s official student spirit group for athletics is called the Manoa Maniacs’.

I had a conversation on Twitter about having the Athletics Department take full control of the Manoa Maniacs’ and apparently they do. Dave Reardon of the Star Bulletin, confirmed it for me, and the Associate Athletics Director of External Affairs, John McNamara, is in charge of it.

So what do you get for joining the Manoa Maniacs’? According to the website here’s what you get:

Free Manoa Maniacs Under Armour T-Shirt
Opportunity to purchase season and individual tickets online and print them at home
Special seating in the Manoa Maniacs section
Opportunities to participate in promotional activities
Weekly e-newsletters from the UH Athletics Department
Opportunities to interact with players and coaches
Recognition at games through PA announcements
Exposure on local, regional and national telecasts

All these features are nice, but so what…

The Manoa Maniacs are the supposed “spirit group” for athletics but guess what, there is no spirit amongst the students. You want to see spirit, look at the Cameron Crazy:

Here’s the students at a non-BCS school (WCC) Gonzaga:

The last time there was an environment close to this was in 2007/2008 when UH went to the Sugar Bowl. But if you look at the environment created by the Cameron Crazy, it’s like this all the time. It’s not just when Duke Basketball is having a good season. Sure you can argue that Duke is a big time school with a big time budget, but honestly, how much is it going to cost to organize a bunch of students who are willing to sit down and figure out ways to create a better in-game experience?

From a college student perspective, who wouldn’t want to be a part of “the madness?” From the looks of it, being a part of a crowd like the Cameron Crazy is like being at a party where every one is going nuts, and every one is having a blast. Isn’t this what most college students want?

So what is the Athletics Department doing? Price discounts are great but that doesn’t make me more spirited. E-newsletters are great but that’s just another push-media tactic.

Investing time and energy on creating an outstanding experience for students is key to future revenue. If you can get those recent college graduates who stay in Hawaii to buy season tickets, how much more money are they going to make? But they are not going to get those recent college graduates to buy tickets by doing what they are doing now….Nothing.

So here’s what they can do:

Don’t neglect them. Take responsibility
Appoint someone to devote their time to managing the Manoa Maniacs
Create a Manoa Maniacs social network where student can connect with one-another and with some key administrators
Ask, Talk, & Engage with these students
Give them the freedom and opportunity to plan events that will rejuvenate the school spirit

These are just some of the things the Athletics Department can do to take responsibility for this student spirit group

What do you think? Is it a lost cause?

Tags: cameron crazy, college athletics, Manoa Maniacs, Social Media, UH Athletics

6 comments
Posted under experience

Permalink # Brent Kawakami said

I think a key element of your 5 items is the last, getting students, fans, and alumni the ability to generate school spirit. Taking Texas just cuz I’m familiar with it, I’d say the majority of excitement is driven by people outside the adminstration and athletic dept (tailgates, fan events, radio/television stuff, etc). Perfect example is that much of my own enthusiasm is fostered by websites and social media not associated with the school such as the Rivals, Scout, and ESPN sites for UT and the few blogs I read dedicated to UT athletics. Maybe this is something the Manoa Maniacs would contribute to however I think it needs to be more than just them. I know at UT, we have these spirit orgs as well, and they do contribute to the gameday environment in many ways, but that’s only a piece of the pie.

Permalink # David Onoue said

UT athletics is almost like a cult wouldn’t you agree? So would you say that there is a lack of school and/or Hawaii sports spirit, that is the cause for low spirit?

I agree with you that students, fans, and alumni are key components. And really it all starts with the students because they will be the ones who the department can turn into lifelong fans.

Do you have the links or websites of these student orgs? Are they like student Registered Independent Orgs?

Permalink # Yoda808 said

I think you bring to light what’s wrong with the current effort by the athletic department to bring back “school spirit/pride” . . . they’re trying to manufacture it. Like you mention the benefits of being a “Manoa Maniac” read like laundry list of being a season ticket holder and not something that makes a student feel too excited.

But rather than focus on the negative, I’ve going to take a line from one of my favorite shows Around the Horn and be “solutions oriented.”

First, let’s focus on taking care of the fan base that we have now. Now I know this is not the most popular choice and from a business perspective why would you want to waste time/money/effort on fans that have already bought it right? Well, I’m no rocket scientist but even I can tell from the games that I attend and what I read in the news that this fan base gets slowly eroded year after year due to the raising of ticket prices. What can we do for this group? Well, that’s the beauty of it–you don’t have to do that much because like I’ve said, they’ve bought in already. Obviously cutting ticket prices helps, but I think what really needs to be done is to simply listen to this core group of people. Now, listening to them doesn’t mean doing everything they say, but by having an avenue for your fans to express their thoughts and feelings about the program, both positive and negative, will go a long way to build bridges with them and bring in their families and friends.

Second, if we want to be like the Texases and Dukes of the world, let’s find out what makes these types of environments work. I think this is the only way to successfully bring in the student body and bring back this thing we call “spirit.”

Now “finding out” doesn’t mean copying programs and initiatives that they do, it means really studying what goes on at these programs in terms of what the athletic department does, what students do, and what administration does and how it all works together. School spirit is something that is formed organically and won’t be created just because we give students discounted tickets and a free t-shirt.

There’s lots more to add to this topic but in the gist of things, I think this is what should be done.

Yoda808,

I agree that you should never neglect your current fan base. They are the ones we need to look to for help and opinions like you had mentioned.

The exciting part is that we have our own culture here on the island and being able to incorporate our culture is something that can separate us from the mainland.

I think the first step is to set-up a social network where people can talk together to create a solution to bring back the school spirit. I know it can be done.

Look forward to more comments.

Sorry for responding so late with this man. Haha, no UT is definitely not a cult…Texas A&M definitely is though…no joke (that would be a whole another discussion topic).

It’s hard to say if UH lacks school spirit or not since I’m not in tune with the school. In that regard, I think UH suffers from a lot of the same problems that UT does….there’s a lot of stuff to do/distractions outside of the school that takes people’s interest away. In conjunction, games are excuses to get together and party as opposed to actually supporting the team. UH has something though that no other school has in my opinion…a state gets behind them. I remember back during that magical season coming back home to be greeted by UH themes in the airport and signs all over the island. Kind of reminds me of the amazing support we saw with things like Jasmine Trias on American idol, the little league baseball team, etc. So to answer your question, I think Hawaii school spirit can be there. Only problem is how to get it on a consistent basis and not just as a bandwagon.

Here are a few websites/examples for UT:
Orangebloods.com- The rivals texas site. I assume you know what rivals is.

Hornfans.com- Very popular UT forum. I don’t know if forums are technically considered “social media” but I consider them to be. I believe this was setup up by some form of UT administration/official body but I’m not sure.

Burntorangenation.com- Probably the most popular texas sports blog.

As yoda said, I would say simply copying formulas from bigger schools will not work…UH is very unique has many obstacles to overcome…some of which will never be able to fix (or at least would take decades to). Hope that gives you an idea.

Permalink # Jeff McNeill said

The history of the Manoa Maniacs will tell you a lot about the challenges of school spirit at UH. I know some of the people involved with it, and it was a long series of challenges to even get the effort recognized and legitimated. UH Athletics Marketing is, um, very challenging to deal with.

The problem with trying to fix things with social media is a “tail wagging the dog” sort of issue. Social media works when it is the tip of the iceberg. It can’t actually lead unless there are already many followers (though they may be latent or unfocused). And it is largely ignored in any case if there is no larger iceberg out there in the community.

Starting a community online when there isn’t one offline is, um, very challenging.

Cheers,
Jeff

The 20 Something Year Old Entrepreneur