To the Editor:

You know the feeling when you grab your favorite box of cereal and it’s almost empty? How disappointed you are to be holding mostly broken pieces? Well, that’s exactly what the student section at basketball games has been like this season: almost empty and incredibly disappointing. But it’s also embarrassing to our university, both in person and on national TV.

The article “What Advantage? Attendance Down 14%” (The Hoya, A10, Feb. 9, 2012) cites a bunch of lame excuses about why students aren’t coming to basketball games this season. No, Verizon Center isn’t located on campus. But it does sell beer — take that, Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Have you ever wondered what “cura personalis” on those banners around campus means? It means, “You are so incredibly lucky to be going to Georgetown University and to have a consistent top-25 basketball program. So go to all of the home games!”

I know spending all week in Lauinger Library can be tempting, but you’re not going to remember anything you studied or wrote in there after you graduate. I don’t remember how to calculate the optimal provision of a public good; I don’t remember the order of the Byzantine dynasties; I certainly don’t remember anything from “Comparative Political Systems.”

What are you going to remember about Georgetown? You’re going to remember going to basketball games with your friends, traveling to basketball games with your friends and Chicken Finger Thursday. Oh, and talking about basketball games with your friends.

If you don’t show up to the basketball games, why did you even pick Georgetown? I’m sure there are plenty of students over at GW who would love to take your place. So let’s get this attendance problem fixed, and quickly — before Notre Dame upsets us, too. We’re better than that.

Eric Rodawig (COL ’07)

Former Viewpoint Editor for The Hoya