I went to my first Stanford football game in 1998, and in the 13 seasons since, I’ve learned quite a lot about the types of people that call themselves my fellow fans.

There’s my dad, a season ticketholder for 30 years who started bringing his son along at the ripe age of five. Sitting near us are my dad’s good friends from college, who range from longtime university employees (often doubling as football almanacs) to the guys who can only make it to a game or two a year. Across the aisle, parents of Cardinal players watch the action next to alums who have done so for 50 years. Hardcore tailgaiters are likely to arrive nearby, lucky if they make it in by the second quarter.

All watching the same game. All enjoying it.

If only MVHS’s games brought more than just athletes’ parents and close friends. If only we found a way to attract non-athletic students. If only our sports crowds were more…heterogeneous.

That may have been a pathetic attempt to appeal to overly studious students, but I’ll tell you what wasn’t: the Intramural Basketball Tournament.

Our sports world is expanding

When I started covering the tournament in the first round for an El Estoque blog, there wasn’t much of an audience to speak of; the teams themselves clearly outnumbered the fans. But as the action picked up, the word spread, and attendance rapidly grew. The crowd began to care more about the action, and the players followed suit. The simple act of predicting winners in the quarterfinal game unleashed furious trash-talking by players and fans alike on Facebook.

By the semifinals, I was unable to move through the entire lunch period lest I give up my prime spot in the full gym. By the finals, it was getting too loud to hear myself think. Amidst the excitement, our blog got nearly 2,000 hits—two thirds of them in the last week of the tournament.

“You’ve got more people following you than there are basketball fans in the school!” a friend told me.

He may have been right, but I’m not taking any of the credit.

Baby steps, not the whole nine yards

The tournament’s success was largely due to its structure. A three-hour football game might be daunting to a fledgling fan who, in hopes of understanding what’s going on, wouldn’t want to just show up part-way through. But all of the matchups in the intramural tournament lasted just one lunch period. Busy students could drop by for a game or two, see how they liked it, and come back when their schedules permitted.

That’s why the crowd was so strong for the championship and teacher games. That’s why there were just as many girls as boys in the crowd—even though only one girl was playing in the tournament. That’s why people were willing to put down their graphing calculators and history textbooks for awhile and just enjoy.

Being a devoted fan is daunting. Once you are committed, there’s often more heartbreak involved than fun. So if you’re the kind of person that hasn’t ever had the chance to care about MVHS athletics (or this sports section, for that matter), take advantage of lunchtime events and shorter games to get yourself into the mix.

And if you’re still here next year, you’ll be happy to mark more than just Homecoming on your calendar.