Write a check….

or SHUT your mouth. At least that’s the gist of the article. Brutally honest, not that the numbers are a shock but the tone is somewhat surprising.

We are, as a whole, a pretty apathetic fan base. From lousy and inconsistent attendance to the lowest fan donor levels of any program in the conference, we are bad. Yet we expect so much and criticize so heavily in the process.

Maybe it’s because of the last few years of losing, or the traditional “WSU cycle” that people speak of, where the program enjoys very nice moments surrounded by pretty bad football. You know, the highs of 1992 was followed by 1993, 1994 was followed by 1995-96, 1997 was followed by 1998-2000, 2001-2003 was followed by 2004-2005, etc, etc, etc. Maybe it’s the up-and-down nature of things that prevent the average Joe from jumping on and finding some extra money for a program that needs it so bad that it won’t even move a game for TV because of the funds that it would take for another project (believe me, that sounds weird, but there is a certain reason a game wasn’t moved for TV because of another event that would cost the university some $).

I will say this – to this day, I still don’t understand why Spokane doesn’t get behind the program more. Here is a school 80 miles to the south that plays an exciting brand of football and is really eastern Wa’s team, yet the fans just don’t get hooked. Granted there are a decent number of fans up there, but really, with the population (Spokane County has 440,000+ residents), you’d think there would be enough fans to sell out a football game. Yet I was there at homecoming for the Cal game, and there were maybe 30,000 people there. Weak, weak sauce.