Where Are the Beavers?

City College athletes want fans to come back and support the many sporting events CCNY offers. Known as Beaver Nation, CCNY features 14 varsity sports, with seven for women (volleyball, soccer, basketball, fencing, cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field) and eight for men (soccer, cross country, basketball, baseball, volleyball, indoor and outdoor track and field, lacrosse [club]). “Our energy comes from the bench and coaches, but 70% of that comes from the crowd,” CCNY basketball player Jason Asamoah said. His season is over, and the team played without fans for the majority of their season.

But fans are welcome now. This spring the men’s volleyball team made the CUNYAC semi-finals. Track athletes are competing against athletes from other colleges in the tri-state area. The Beaver’s baseball season is in full swing. But the COVID pandemic and restrictions changed the sports culture at City College and few to no fans now show up.

After two years of COVID many students who attended sporting events have graduated. The newer students have not had the chance to become invested in the school’s teams.

Morale is low. Athletes need the energy, even when cheers from the stands sound like white noise. It is important. “When students cheer us on and taunt the opposing team, it boosts our ability to play hard to the very last second,” Jason Asamoah said.

One member of the women’s fencing team made it to the regional competition in March 2022. But there were no fans, and her fencing teammates could not go to her bout because of COVID restrictions.

Fans might have helped other fencers who hoped to qualify for the regionals. “Hearing the cheers would have brought my self-esteem up,” CCNY Women’s Fencing Team member Seerat Kamal said. “If there were people from the beginning it would have been motivating, but throughout the day people from other schools began to cheer me on even though I feel I did terrible,” said Karina Torres, another fencer on the team.

The Athletic Department has ideas about how to attract fans for the fall, interim Athletic Director and Head Baseball Coach Steve Macias told members of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. In the fall he wants student athletes to attend classes wearing their warm-up gear and sit in the front. He thinks other students will get interested and ask athletes questions about their sports. He also wants to reach out to professors in other fields to get them interested.

Student athletes hope these strategies work and that there will be more fans in the fall. “It would be sort of deflating if we had no support,” Jack Vellon, an ice hockey player, said.