Editorial: Show your bulldog pride

You may not have accepted it yet, but Fresno State is known nationwide because of athletics, not academics or our award-winning wines.

With the Save Mart Center, one of the best arenas in the country on our campus and our football team being ranked among the best in one of the most popular sports in the nation, it is only natural for people to see Fresno State as an athletics school.

Our fame in athletics, however, was not earned in the most noble of ways. The road to our athletics’ fame has been paved with scandals including athletes and officials.

During the Jerry Tarkanian era, some of our athletes were accused of cheating to get good grades.

And former women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein was fired after the university discovered a series of professional misconducts on her part. Soon after Johnson-Klein’s departure, men’s basketball coach Ray Lopes shocked Fresno when he suddenly announced his resignation because he broke NCAA phone call rules.

Despite the problems surrounding our basketball teams, our football team has maintained a clean record and carried itself in a dignified manner.

Our football team is now among the highest ranked schools in both athletics and academics. Over the last eight years our football team’s graduation rate has doubled and it has produced more than 50 academic stars in the WAC region.

The football team’s Academic Progress Rate has also surpassed the national average by almost 20 points and they are academically ranked best in the WAC region.

The academic star of our football team extends to the NCAA. The team is ranked fourth among NCAA Division 1-A schools in the West Coast, ahead of big schools like Cal, USC and UCLA.

The university has also taken steps to make sure Fresno State athletics turns away from its scandalous persona. The hiring of a new athletics director and men’s basketball coach seem to be positive steps toward bringing back discipline to the department, which was giving the whole university a negative reputation.

But students don’t seem to have been moved by the positive developments in the athletics department or the Bulldog football team’s performance in class and on the field. Despite the team’s winning ways and cheaper football tickets for students, the student section of Bulldog Stadium needs to be full on a consistent basis.

University President John Welty’s riding a mini-bicycle to promote homecoming should not be viewed as a once in a while funny gimmick by the president, it should be a cue for students to join in and show their pride in our high achieving football team.

In the Saturday game against Utah State, let us all come out and cheer our football team to another victory. Let’s show our Fresno State pride.

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