Let me be very candid about my four year experience with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee athletics: I have held nothing more than a mild interest in any of them and, for the majority of them, remain completely oblivious.

I played baseball, basketball and football throughout my life and anything outside that realm I do not maintain a high interest in, or have extensive knowledge of. With that being said, I will attempt to chronicle my experience with UWM sports from my first semester here in the fall of 2004 to spring semester 2008, the final semester before I graduate, assuming, of course, that I pass Weight Training I. It is difficult, I swear.

When I entered the UWM in 2004, the leaves were turning colors, the Milwaukee Brewers were terrible, Brett Favre appeared on Monday Night Football, not David Letterman, and the UWM men’s basketball team was on the verge of arguably its finest season in history. Oh how times have changed.

That year the men’s team danced its way to the Sweet 16, beating Alabama and Boston College along the way. The Cinderella team lost to eventual national runner-up Illinois but nonetheless that year was in the apex of sports in my four year career at the university. Unfortunately, it also led the Tennessee Volunteers to obtain Bruce Pearl for themselves and leave a large coaching hole to fill.

The next year the men’s basketball team, under new head coach Rob Jeter, also earned its way into the Big Dance, this time defeating favored Oklahoma, then coached by questionable Kelvin Sampson. In the next round of 32, they were destroyed by eventual champions Florida. Still, making the field of 65 and winning a game, almost by definition, makes the team one of the 32 best in the nation.

Throughout the rest of my school years, nothing athletically stands out. A lack of school spirit, no football team and no on-campus basketball facility eliminate much of my interest in UWM athletics.

I was good friends with a guy on the club team and faced some of the guys on the baseball team in high school and that mildly sparked my interest in baseball here. Ironically, my cousin plays on the women’s volleyball team for conference rival Loyola and it was to watch her that I attended my one and only volleyball game here. I also am dating a member of the women’s cross country and track teams and do my best to follow that; if nothing else it brings up my school spirit.

I enjoy any kind of success that the UWM community experiences and hopefully all the teams will find nothing but success and achievement. Unfortunately, like in all sports, success breeds interest, and without it, fans do not fill the seats as consistently.

The biggest attraction remains the men’s basketball team, but with struggles in the recent years and an off-campus facility, the student section will continue to dwindle until they become good again.

The student body remains large enough to generate good, marketable athletic teams and hopefully in the near future that will occur. So while I possess a self-admitted bias towards professional sports, nothing in my junior or senior year at UWM rekindles any fond memories of sports here.

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