What comes to your mind when you think of Division I Athletics? Upper echelon athletes doing their thing in their respective fields? That buzz that is around campus on gameday? The thrill of cheering with your friends and classmates in your school’s colors?
Recently, it’s felt like Lipscomb has had two of three. Sure, there is that buzz on campus when it’s gameday, but do the students and fans really bring it when the whistle blows?
Honestly, Lipscomb lacks the school pride.
Lipscomb is a small, private, predominantly Caucasian, Church of Christ university. Not surprisingly, the school tends to draw a fairly conservative body of students. They come from private schools, Christian schools, home-schools, smaller schools and the university’s neighboring campus school. These schools pride themselves on developing a student’s character and academics over athletic ability, and Lipscomb follows suit. For better or worse, we just don’t focus on school spirit much around here.
And school spirit means being proud of your school – where it’s going and where it’s been. A student with school spirit is a constant reflection and representation of the school. They own half the campus bookstore, they’re always thinking of ways to make the school better, and they take pride in everything that the school stands for.
By contrast, Lipscomb students come from conservative backgrounds, which makes them more reserved and less inclined to go crazy over a basketball game. Ironically, I hear students complain all the time about how Lipscomb doesn’t have a football team. Why should we field a mediocre football team? We have two teams that make it to national tournaments consistently, and we can barely support them.
Our volleyball team constantly goes on long win streaks and is in position to win the Atlantic Sun Conference every year. The same goes for the softball team. Despite their success, student support at their games is so weak you can barely hear the cheers.
I wish I could pinpoint why Lipscomb students won’t grow out of their comfort zones and become passionate fans of our university. But we need to. And when we do, Lipscomb will become something Nashville has never seen before.
I completely agree with your point about school spirit. However, you stated as a fact that our students ONLY come from “private schools, Christian schools, home-schools, smaller schools, and the university’s neighboring campus school.” … This is not true at all. In fact, many of my friends came from large public schools, as did I. Like I said, I don’t disagree with your point at all, but maybe you should just say our student body mostly comes from those places.. and not limit it entirely. It discounts those of us who came from other schools, as well as many of our international students.
First off, I’m not upset over your article, I think it is a good article. But I have some issues to address.
As a former home-schooler here at Lipscomb, I have not met many other fellow former home-schoolers here.
It’s unfair to lump all home-school associations to only “pride themselves on developing a student’s character and academics over athletic ability”.
I attended Aaron Academy in Hendersonville, where they have around nine sports for male and females. I also played basketball for five years there and helped form a fast-pitch softball team, which I played for over ten years.
Out of Aaron Academy we have had many graduates go onto college sports. Including colleges that are apart of NCAA.
Sports are big at Aaron Academy. We have rivalries, multiple championships and winning seasons and have played public, private and other home-school associations on various venues. We have always had huge crowds at our games, especially womens’ basketball, that fans “go crazy” in school spirit.
So to assume that all home-schoolers, or even students who attend private-schools have a lack of team spirit is not an accurate or fair assumption to make.
But I will say, “character” and “academics” is something that home-schoolers dedicated themselves to. For many, it is not a prideful thing but rather something to commit to, which goes into playing sports.