HCC Upgrades coming?

[appgrouch]

On a job posting on the appstate.edu site:
"Execution and production for new Holmes Convocation Center videoboard"

[Saint3333]

That has been said to have been facilities priority number one since DG took over, much needed, and can pay for itself long term (if we can get viewership up).

[T-Dog]

Good catch. There's a couple of job postings on there. One for Assistant Director of Communications and the other is Assistant Director of Broadcast Operations. Sounds like both jobs encompass much of what DJ did, plus a few new things like YouTube, website designs and social media.

[scatman77]

Good catch. There's a couple of job postings on there. One for Assistant Director of Communications and the other is Assistant Director of Broadcast Operations. Sounds like both jobs encompass much of what DJ did, plus a few new things like YouTube, website designs and social media.

If.....IF...these two jobs were a part of DJ's responsibilities...........and IF they were created after he left............

Let's just say that it's a travesty they were not created before he left....IF the responsibilities were DJ's to begin with.

[APPdiesel]

Great step in making HCC better. Glad to see that it's not all just going to the football program. Making commitments like this will help us get better recruits and hold on to coach Fox as long as possible.

twitter.com/DieselOnRadio

[/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09]

Great step in making HCC better. Glad to see that it's not all just going to the football program. Making commitments like this will help us get better recruits and hold on to coach Fox as long as possible.

twitter.com/DieselOnRadio

Getting butts in those empty seats will also help with recruiting. Putting myself in the shoes of a high school recruit, I would not want to play somewhere that appears to have lack of interest in the basketball team. Our attendance is pretty pathetic, even taking into consideration the top sections which have been blocked off to help make it not look so bad. Maybe this addition will attract more people?

[asu66]

That was a shortcoming DGillin put on his "First Hundred Days To Do List" when he was hired. He couldn't fathom the faux scoreboards in HCC. He was shaking his head in disbelief. Looks as if he's about to mark this project off as completed! That's a big deal for our basketball and volleyball programs.

[AppMom3]

This would be awesome and much needed for the facility!

[APPdiesel]

How about providing an incentive for students to show up. Everything I've heard in the past few years has been kid and family friendly....events on the concourse (away from the game). That's not gonna do it.

Obviously the students are mobile and ready (look at 10k at football games). Get the video department equally involved in basketball. Make it look cool.

twitter.com/DieselOnRadio

[bcoach]

I think the real problem is that we HAVE to figure out ways to entice people to come. It seems they just are not interested in the sport.
If you live walking distance from the event and are not interested in going it seems to me that no amount of promotions are going to change that. Could the answer just be very simple? Winning?

[boonetown1]

To get people to come to games, I would take multiple approaches. First, I would target locals; that means with high schools and through local establishments

Second, I would target students. Perhaps Create basketball program profiles to communicate who this team is. Maybe a short video that you can load onto Applenet for students to click on and learn more about our opponents. This could create more of a "rivalry" mindset. We have an excellent video department, let's use them. I mean if our athletics marketing was as good as our media department, things would be a lot better. Also, we need to sell the party. have incentives for the students, allow them to tailgate, promote different activities at the game.

Lastly, just win.

[asu66]

Firemoose and others advocate for a few special ApplCart routes to and from HCC on game afternoons/nights. That takes the bite out of the "it's too cold" and "there's no place to park" excuses. IMHO, this needs to be tried--with appropriate promotion all during football season.

[JTApps1]

Firemoose and others advocate for a few special ApplCart routes to and from HCC on game afternoons/nights. That takes the bite out of the "it's too cold" and "there's no place to park" excuses. IMHO, this needs to be tried--with appropriate promotion all during football season.

Completely agree with this as it would be useful for students and other fans alike.

[8993]

As a brand new App State alum (graduated last weekend), I can tell you what I hear as to why students don't go to these games:

1. We don't win. While a lot of what has happened, result wise, was due to Capel, the past few years with Fox haven't been extremely successful either. The students don't want to go to games where we'll likely lose, especially when a majority of them are over the weekends during the dead of winter.

2. There's no incentive to go when your team isn't winning. Free boom sticks and coupons for 10% off SweetFrog frozen yogurt just don't cut it. If HCC sold beer, you'd likely see more people going together, as it'd be a way to get tipsy while still watching sports and hanging out with your friends.

3. Getting to HCC sucks. There is no parking, bus routes on the weekends and in the evenings are more limited, and parking in Stadium Lot and walking down the wind tunnel that is Rivers Street is brutal during the middle of winter. Again, no one wants to make that trip if the team isn't winning on a regular basis. In addition to that, HCC is not a good atmosphere. In comparison to other venues, it doesn't compare. Compare HCC to LJVM Coliseum (Wake Forest) and you can't even compare the two. Wake isn't good at basketball, but their pep band has prime real estate in seating, with tons of merchandise and food available to purchase on the concourse. At App, there are four subpar and overpriced concession stands with nothing going on during the games aside from that.

4. Students don't know who is even on the teams. With the football team, the players are active in the community and make sure to make themselves known. With the basketball team, nobody really knows who they are as they aren't really in the limelight and the athletic department often pays more attention to promoting solely football rather than looking at the department as a whole and NOT just football.

5. There is no proven and long term dedication to basketball from the athletic department. The dedication students see comes in waves. One year, everybody is big on making basketball a big thing, but the next year, nothing happens and it looks like the team is virtually nonexistent. I think that will change with DG, but it definitely did not work with Cobb.

TL;DR: Winning has to happen first. After that happens, students will have more reason to show up. Better the overall experience from top to bottom, including working on the concourse, updating and upgrading the stadium, and sell merchandise/food that people actually want. Let the students know more about the team rather than just telling them that a game is coming up once a month.

[huskie3]

Hopefully the opening of The Standard housing will help with the shorter walk.

[boonetown1]

When I was in school 06-10 I do remember seeing a random sign on campus "basketball game - Saturday at noon". Good publicity right?

I agree with the last poster about A. knowing whos on the team and B offering stuff worth a crap.

[AppDawg]

8993 - congrats on graduating.

Were you aware that the coaching staff and Men's players go to the tAPP Room after every home game to interact with fans/students? Is this readily known to the student body?

[moehler]

bottom line, winning cures everything, unfortunately, much harder than it looks, atleast for us, still, I have a lot of faith in Fox that will eventually get the program on the right track, upgrades to the Holmes center certainly is a step in the right direction.

[bcoach]

Let's be really honest here. There is no upgrade to the place that is going to improve attendance. The upgrade that is going to improve attendance is on the floor. The key to attendance at our place is students plain and simple. 8993 just told us that and he is fresh off the campus. Please show me a place where a place gets packed with a losing record year after year. I think coach Fox will get it turned around but till then gimmicks are not going to get buts in the seats. I am going to take shots for this but I am not sure how Davidson and Duke help our cause till we at least get competitive in our own conference.

[Yosef]

I will say when I was a student in the mid 2000s, even though I was a basketball fan I didn't go to as many games as I should have. Main reason? I didn't know when the games even were. I'm not sure I received a single email in my inbox from app state encouraging me to attend.

To be clear, I went to plenty of games and displayed my passion for app basketball ardently to the point that a ref unsuccessfully tried to throw me out of the game. When we papered dorms in 2007 for a few games, I'm pretty sure we set a few top 10 attendance records by simply making students aware there was a game. Of course we had a winning team that year so I'm sure that helped too.