Written by Kylie Akins
A passionate piece of Harding University’s tradition was reincarnated last Saturday night when over 1,500 students blacked out the stands of the Rhodes Field House for the men’s basketball game against Ouachita Baptist University. Although attendance has dwindled in recent years, a number of dedicated students have decided this is the season the Rowdies will come back in full force.
“I think sometimes when you have something going for a long time, sometimes it just needs to rebirth itself,” Jeff Morgan, head coach of the men’s basketball team, said. “It came from some students who really wanted to come in, make a difference, have fun and get a lot of people involved. I think because of that, it was a good thing. It wasn’t like we were pulling teeth trying to get people to come and have a great time. I think this came of something building from within. That was huge.”
The Rhodes Rowdies experience that junior Brett Fielder remembers from his visit in seventh grade is a packed gym of cheering students, energy coming from every corner of the stands.
“That was back when they were in their prime and everything,” Fielder said. “And so, that’s my biggest memory of it: seeing it when it was really good and right when it had just started.”
Fielder appealed to several social clubs, especially pushing his own club TNT, to join the effort to revive the Rowdies. He also created a Facebook group to supplement the word-of-mouth buzz he surrounded the Saturday game with, which accrued over 450 members.
Junior Harrison Dell, also a member of TNT, said he had noticed the diminishing enthusiasm in the audience since he began attending Harding.
“Progressively it became more cool to sit down,” Dell said. “And that shouldn’t be the case. The cool thing to do is not to sit down; the cool thing to do is to go nuts, and be a big dog for the Bisons.”
Dell, Fielder and Morgan all agreed that the Rhodes Rowdies was never intended to be an exclusive group but instead meant to include the entire body of students who attend the basketball games.
“I hope that it doesn’t become some exclusive thing where only certain people are considered Rhodes Rowdies,” Dell said. “Because I just think that the basic common denominator is that we’re all here to go nuts for the Bisons.”
Fielder said he hoped this generation of Rhodes Rowdies would add personality and creativity to the traditions created by the classes before. The game on Saturday featured several old chants, the three-point cheer and the classic “Air ball” chant. One of the newer, more creative elements at the game included a white board maintained by Dell and Fielder, with messages for the opposing team. The board displayed notes like “O B Who?” and a promise to meet an opponent at Midnight Oil after the game following his two air balls during the first half.
At one point, the students began to chant, “We want Burks!” to summon the university president onto the court during half time. David Burks came down from the stands, ran through a tunnel of students and then remained courtside for the rest of the game.
The game ended in victory for the Bisons, 79-58. If the excitement was already prominent coming into the game, it only increased as the team kept the lead.
“I’ve always said there’s really a strong connection between what’s going on on the floor and what’s happening up in the stands, between our team and the teammates in the stands,” Morgan said. “That’s why we have always, as a basketball team, looked at everybody that came to the gym as a huge part of our team and a part of our program. It’s very humbling to come out and the stands are full, and people are having fun.”
Morgan said he hopes to see more students participate at the basketball games to come. He said he recognizes the student body as the team’s “biggest support group.” With the Rowdies’ attendance averaging over 2,000 since the Division-II Bisons joined the NCAA, its strength of former years has exceeded a third of Division-I teams’ attendance records. Of the top-ten single-game attendance records in GSC basketball history, Harding claims seven.
“Last Saturday night, the intensity was probably the best we’ve had all year,” Morgan said. “If people call it a revival, I’m all for it. I just hope people want to come out to the games because they feel like they’re a part. I feel basketball lends itself to that because you’re closer to the action. You’re almost right in the middle of it. There’s so much intimacy between what’s going on on the floor and in the stands, because you’re involved in the action. I think that’s what’s fun about it.”
