Standing room only crowd arrives at Lantz Arena
Sophomore communication disorder and sciences major Kersten Kidd, along with senior elementary educaiton major Lindsay Anderson and other members of the Blue Crew, play for the camera during the men’s basketball 77-62 loss to Murray State on Thursday at Lantz Arena. 4,542 people were in attendance for the standing room only game, which was televised on CBS Sports Network.
January 23, 2015
Anybody that walked into Lantz Arena on Thursday was aware that the promotion for the nationally televised contest between the Panthers and Murray State would be called “Blue Out Lantz.” What they didn’t know was that they would be part of a standing-room only crowd of 4,500+ fans.
This included students, faculty, alumni and many residents of not only Charleston but the surrounding area as well.
Kelly Harmon, who works in the Registers Office, a native of Kansas, Ill., was in attendance once again, as she has for most of the season.
“I’ve been going to game for two years, and it’s about time that we hosted a televised game,” Harmon said. “Schools the same size as Eastern are usually on TV, we needed one of these.”
Another person who agreed that the televised contest would be good for the university was Ryan Alderman, a member of the Blue Crew’s executive board. Alderman said that the “Crew”, Eastern’s student section, began their mission of trying to recruit more students to attend games as early as last spring.
“Wednesday at ‘Pantherpalooza’ we tried recruiting as many as we good for this one,” Alderman said. “It went very well, and as you can see we had a big turnout for the game.”
Alderman has attended all Panther basketball games, which includes both the men and women, since his arrival last year as a freshman. He says that his job description basically calls for him to be the loudest person at the games.
“For cheers we’ll usually stick to the classics ‘E-I-E-I-EIU’ and ‘Go Big Blue’,” Alderman said. “We may go with some new ones starting (Thursday).”
Harmon and her husband Jeff were able to get reserved seats for the game for the first time ever, and said the exciting start has been great to watch.
“This has been a great, awesome start to the season,” Harmon said. “Chris Olivier is my favorite player, and I talk to him a lot at work because my office is right here at Lantz Arena.
Unfortunately the Panthers were defeated by the Racers 77-62, but the event was a success for the sports management interns, who gave away 300 t-shirts by 7 p.m.
“Most of the items we sold were giveaway t-shirts, but we also help with on-court promotions, such as the frozen t-shirt contest and others,” said Jacob Gable, a senior sports management major.
Gable and his friends and coworkers had started planning for this night two weeks ago. There are currently six interns on the staff, including one student who was at the scorer’s table, and more who were in charge of keeping the crowd fired up.
Murray State’s fans even their head coach Steve Prohm.
“The atmosphere was incredible. I wish every environment was like that,” Prohm said. “Jay’s done an unbelievable job. Eastern’s a good, tough team.”
Murray State season ticket holder Trevor Pervine made the 3 hour and 45 minute drive to Charleston for the very first time. Pervine said that half the population in Murray, which is roughly 16,000 usually attends their home games.
“This facility is different, and we’re not used to it,” Pervine said. “However, this is a big game that features two unbeaten Ohio Valley Conference, and anything can happen in the conference.”
During his press conference after the game, Spoonhour said how impressed he was with the crowd at Lantz.
“They came and cheered the whole game, but we’ve just got to get better,” Spoonhour said. “I think it’ll happen a lot in the future. We just got to continue.
Blake Nash can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].
