School spirit at PSU?

School spirit is an odd thing. No matter what school you attend, or what stage of your life you may be in, every school is going to push you toward wearing school colors and attending athletic events.

Portland State is different. Don’t get me wrong, administration does everything they can to get more students to games, whether it’s that “whoever brings the most people to the basketball game gets an iPad” promotion, or even the Green Man Group (they try their hardest).

This school isn’t different as far as that goes. Portland State is different because people just don’t care.

And I love it.

I have been down to Eugene and Corvallis. It’s great that they take pride in their sports programs. Good for them. But, I’m sorry, being down in Eugene for anything more than a weekend during football season would give me a headache.

As I walked around campus in the night, I was bombarded by yells of “scoducks!” over and over again. Once one person yelled it, anyone else in hearing distance shouted at the top of their lungs. A chain reaction was created, and I felt as if I were in a swarm of horny birds during mating season.

Oregon State is the same. Their obsession with the Beavers scares me.

If I ever ran around Portland State campus yelling “scoviks” I would get blank stares, and everyone would wonder what the hell I was talking about. It’s perfect here. There are no unwritten rules about wearing school gear, or supporting any team. Everybody does their own thing.

This school has so much else around it that makes school spirit irrelevant. It’s located in the heart of Portland, with so many interesting things to see and experience around us. The Portland Trail Blazers and Portland Timbers, real sports teams, are both a MAX ride away. And I don’t know about anybody else, but I have spoken with some of the most intriguing people in my time here.

I hate school spirit. I didn’t like it in high school, and I still feel the same way. I enjoy sports, especially basketball. But that doesn’t mean I want to go to a basketball game decked in Vikings gear and obsessing over college athletes. I could care less about University of Oregon football players or any college athletes for that matter. Especially the coaches who get million-dollar contracts when schools are struggling to pay professors.

When it comes down to it, school spirit may lead to more revenue for schools, but it worsens what colleges are supposed to be about: learning. I would take good academics over a good athletic program any day. It’s unfortunate that some people don’t feel that way. It’s unfortunate that the argument is even open for debate.

Portland State is the same way. Administration does their best to endorse the football program, because it brings in the most revenue. But at least students here don’t care—unlike so many other schools across the nation that will continue to give their athletic programs millions of dollars because they know they will always make money.

I just hope this school stays the same. I hope school spirit continues to be nonexistent, and that I will never have to hear the word “sco” followed by a team mascot again in my life.