S TO RISE LIKE PHOENIX
court to your left. Students man the doors and scan the barcodes on the tickets.
You are then greeted by a impressive selection of merchandise, jerseys, hoodies, tracksuit bottoms, hats, foam fingers, travel mugs and more. Everything branded.
When you leave the shop the man selling the game day scorecard passes you his wares for a dollar (actual card, not paper). On one side is handy tidbits of information, a place to keep score and stats for the game, information on the players etc. On the colour side is a large poster of a player in full kit (LeClaire graced the Jackrabbits card, Lindstrom the Marquette equivalent).
You go to your seat, numbered clearly of course. Even half an hour before the game there are things happening.
A couple of girls bob around the crowd and look for participants to take part in the several games that take place during breaks, a chance to win prizes but more importantly a great way to get the audience involved.
The band stationed behind the basket at the entrance side of the 4,018-seat Kress Center are cranking up their tunes, already making the atmosphere electric as the players warm up on the court.
The cheerleaders move through the gears with each lift delving deep into their practice hours as they edge closer to perfection. They’ll take their show to Lambeau Field the following day as the Packers are one of six NFL teams without professional cheer squads.
The crowd seep in and the make-up is a little surprising. Very few are current students in UWGB, a few high school teams from around the state are dotted around and easily spotted.
Otherwise, the vast majority of the almost 3,000-strong crowd are over 50 years of age - a group ignored when attempting any wayward promotion of a sport in Ireland.
They are into it too, this is local pride, it might be a college team but it’s their college team. The national anthem almost bursts through the ceiling as the Phoenix girls lock arms. When it starts, the action is quick.
Occasionally there’s a chance to catch coach Borseth calling in the plays; he looks a little like Monty Burns confusing Homer with signals in The Simpsons episode ‘Homer at the Bat’.
When the action stops, media time-outs (for TV breaks) are filled with the games and contests prepared before any ball is thrown at the basket in anger. But watching the bench is at least as interesting as what’s going on. The two hours from tip-off to game’s end motor by in a haze of exciting action and all-inclusive activity.
The whole package was superb, from start to the end. I’m sure everything doesn’t always go as planned but it looks pretty polished as an outsider. This is a college team, drawing huge crowds in the 286th biggest city in America, just behind Hillsboro, and ahead of Tyler, Texas.
The fact is, Wexford against Tipperary in the ladies’ football quarter-final was exceptional fare, while Wexford Youths against Peamount in the Continental Tyres WNL title decider was nail-biting, crazy tension with real excitement. Too many people didn’t see those games, weren’t enticed in.
Let’s not pretend any different; the product is not the problem, in any way, shape or form, the problem is those tasked with promoting the product. They are falling so far short of acceptable it’s depressing, and the saddest part is that there seems no way out of this spiral of mediocrity.
Money is often blamed but is money really the problem? The Camogie Association has multiple full-time staff, can afford to send most of them off on an All Star holiday to Spain, but can’t have an All-Ireland fixture confirmed for local newspapers six days before it’s scheduled to take place.
Basketball fans have been drawn to the Green Bay Phoenix because the package is first class all the time, not just for a day here and there, when the occasion is deemed to merit it.
Until the whole offering closes in on what’s offered Stateside, women’s sport in this county and country is going nowhere, no matter how many hollow pats on the back there are to go around.