Here's a two-part question for everyone reading this editorial: did you attend the football game this weekend? If you answered yes, then here's the second part of the question: were you actually able to watch the game? There's a chance that some of you can say yes, but there's an even greater chance that most of you would say no, or at least not without having to strain to get a limited glimpse of the action on the field. Truth be told, the game this past Saturday looked more like a Dave Matthews Band concert than a football game with so many people standing around the perimeter of the field.
Enough is enough. This university has got to do something in order to give people the opportunity to actually watch the football team within the confines of the stadium. UNH cannot continue to expect to be the central state university here in New Hampshire with an enrollment of over 11,000 students and play Division I football when its stadium has a smaller capacity than that of well over 72 high school stadiums in the state of Texas alone. The athletic department should be commended in setting up the bleachers in the end zone and at least trying to help the situation. But in reality, those bleachers are like putting a band-aid over an artery wound; it's a solution that is disproportionately overwhelmed by the actual problem. Compare UNH to the University of Delaware, which plays in the same football conference as UNH. UD has a similar enrollment to UNH (approximately 15,000). Furthermore, UD is a state university located in a state with a smaller population, which translates into less of a fan base. So how does UD manage to have a 22,000-seat stadium, whereas UNH is stuck with a rundown 6,500-seat stadium? It's simply inexcusable.
And it's even more inexcusable that recent graduates that came back for Homecoming Weekend this past Saturday had to pay $17 in order to get in the stadium, only to discover that there was nowhere to actually watch the game as well as anyone else who had to pay $17 for admittance. So, someone pays to get into the stadium to get a view that is hardly any better than what it was outside the gates.
Obviously this school has a lot of needs in terms of where funding should be spent. But with a football team that is as competitive as ours is now, there certainly are companies out there who would be thrilled to come in and build a new stadium for the naming rights to it. UNH needs to get with the times and realize that selling the naming rights for a new stadium would only help the university out. The school would be making a huge profit from each game if it did this, and business in the town of Durham would receive a huge pop from the fact that there would be more people around. If this school has any sense, they will really push for this option while the football team is still riding such a high crest.
Really, the situation with the football stadium is a microcosm of the whole problem with the University of New Hampshire. It seems like the school is acting as a state university in taking on a large number of students, yet it still sees itself as this small, charming New England college. But while the school has tried to remain a cute little school tucked away in the Northeastern corner of America, a problem has arisen where there is not only nowhere to sit in the football stadium and watch the football team play, there is also nowhere to live, nowhere to park a car, nowhere to work-out, etc. And it has done little to give students more space until it's way too late. When the Associated Press ran the attendance in the box score for the UNH-Richmond game, it misprinted it as 829 rather then 8,299. It certainly seems like the school would love for the former to be closer to the truth.
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