Post by Bornthrilla on Jul 11, 2005 8:44:56 GMT -5
We all know Bennett College has forged close ties to A&T throughout the years. Although they are not officially regarded as our sister school, they are pretty much considered that by most people in the surrounding community. Hell, many of us even dated girls at Bennett when we were at A&T.
Last fall, I was at a speech on Bennett's campus which featured famed A&T alumnus Jesse Jackson. Invited by Dr. Jonetta Cole, he came through and talked about the history of the sitin movement in Greensboro, and how the ladies at Bennett College quickly came on board and continued to keep the movement strong when it began to simmer down somewhat amongst the A&T students.
That got me to thinking.
Why not let all Bennett College students who have a valid student ID get into all A&T sporting events free? This would include all the basketball home games and the football home games except for maybe homecoming.
Think about it: Their enrollment in under 500 students and you know, probably more than half of them could care less about football or basketball. The only sport they even offer at Bennett is women's basketball. I covered it last season and they average about 150 fans at their home games. So, at worst, you would be letting maybe 300 girls in free for each football game and probably the same number for each basketball game. There are probably thousands of females currently enrolled at A&T who wouldn't come to a football or basketball game if their lives depended on it. Some girls just don't care about sports or have other things to do.
So you wouldn't really be losing a lot of potential ticket revenue. However, the public relations impact such a gesture would make would be astronomical.
This would really show the black community how close the two institutions are and how we are both in this fight together. The News & Record would probably run a story on it and have Dr. Cole and Chancellor Renick pose for a picture together. This would be the feel good story of the year. All black leaders in Greensboro would applaud us and pledge to follow our lead. The Crips and Bloods would stop fighting. Mount Zion and the House of Prayer would hold a joint fish fry.
You could even have the PA announcer welcome them at each home game, which would draw cheers from the crowd.
Hell, you could even print some new t-shirts that say something like "Bennett College & NC A&T: a winning team". You could sale those in both the A&T and Bennett book stores and make a killing. Since we let their students into our games for free, we could keep all the proceeds from the gear.
Last fall, I was at a speech on Bennett's campus which featured famed A&T alumnus Jesse Jackson. Invited by Dr. Jonetta Cole, he came through and talked about the history of the sitin movement in Greensboro, and how the ladies at Bennett College quickly came on board and continued to keep the movement strong when it began to simmer down somewhat amongst the A&T students.
That got me to thinking.
Why not let all Bennett College students who have a valid student ID get into all A&T sporting events free? This would include all the basketball home games and the football home games except for maybe homecoming.
Think about it: Their enrollment in under 500 students and you know, probably more than half of them could care less about football or basketball. The only sport they even offer at Bennett is women's basketball. I covered it last season and they average about 150 fans at their home games. So, at worst, you would be letting maybe 300 girls in free for each football game and probably the same number for each basketball game. There are probably thousands of females currently enrolled at A&T who wouldn't come to a football or basketball game if their lives depended on it. Some girls just don't care about sports or have other things to do.
So you wouldn't really be losing a lot of potential ticket revenue. However, the public relations impact such a gesture would make would be astronomical.
This would really show the black community how close the two institutions are and how we are both in this fight together. The News & Record would probably run a story on it and have Dr. Cole and Chancellor Renick pose for a picture together. This would be the feel good story of the year. All black leaders in Greensboro would applaud us and pledge to follow our lead. The Crips and Bloods would stop fighting. Mount Zion and the House of Prayer would hold a joint fish fry.
You could even have the PA announcer welcome them at each home game, which would draw cheers from the crowd.
Hell, you could even print some new t-shirts that say something like "Bennett College & NC A&T: a winning team". You could sale those in both the A&T and Bennett book stores and make a killing. Since we let their students into our games for free, we could keep all the proceeds from the gear.