Sports > November 29, 2007

By Allison Lange | Asst. sports editor

I’m a Wake Forest basketball fan. By fan I don’t simply mean I take a general liking to the season. I mean I eat, sleep and breathe Wake basketball.

You could say that during this time of year the outcome on the hardwood dictates my mood. (Take this as a warning; you don’t want to mess with me after, God forbid, a loss.) Logically, due to my die-hard nature, I am a Screamin’ Demon. This, however, is a rarity seeing as I am a girl in a sorority. The number of girls in my sorority who are Screamin’ Demons probably lies in the single digits; however, I am not bothered by this statistic due to my previously stated unwavering loyalty. Now, having established that I LOVE Wake basketball, I am going to explain to you my problem with the Screamin’ Demons program.

I recently received an e-mail from SDexcuses@gmail.com, just as I’m sure many of you have if you submitted any kind of legitimate excuse. The e-mail informed me that I was not excused for the first exhibition game. I submitted an excuse due to the fact I had a mandatory chapter meeting for my sorority and a group meeting to work on a project. Knowing the consequences of missing my chapter and project meetings, I decided I had no choice other than to miss the basketball game. After all, it was exhibition. As stated in the contract signed by all Screamin’ Demons the only valid excuses are for “work or academic classes,” meaning you must physically be in class or at your job and provide documentation showing this. This, however, is grossly unfair. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that if you decide to attend Wake Forest University you know that academics come first. This is an academically rigorous institution and if you have hopes of surviving, homework must be your first priority. The folks on the other end of SDexcuses, however, apparently don’t care. Who are you anyways?

Screamin’ Demons is not the only organization I am involved in and while I am proud to be a part of Tie-Dye Nation, I cannot give it my full and undivided attention. With a full load of five classes, a commitment to my sorority and a job with the Old Gold & Black, it is not plausible for me to miss just one game this semester alone. There must be a more lenient policy when an excuse is legitimate. Excuses must be granted for academic work, in addition to classes. But, there are other legitimate excuses as well.

Hey, SDexcuses, do you get excused if you are deathly ill? After receiving the verdict of my e-mail I probed some of my friends to see if they had felt the wrath of the SDexcuses monster. My friend who was deathly ill also submitted an excuse. He had strep throat, a 103 degree temperature and was vomiting uncontrollably, you know, the whole nine yards. However, even after scanning and attaching the signed doctor’s note to his SDexcuses e-mail he was denied an excused absence. His professors accepted it. So that must mean attendance at the basketball games is more important than classes. Dr. Hatch, how do you feel about that? No, being deathly ill isn’t “work or an academic class,” but is that fair, let alone logical? Really, he could come and sit next to you, Mr. SDexcuses. How would you like that? I do hear strep is a helluva good time. Maybe everyone at the game could have given it a test-a-roo if he had braved dying so that he wouldn’t get an unexcused absence.

I understand the mission of the Screamin’ Demons. They want to garner school spirit by making the sporting events more about the athletes than the social aspect. I think that is awesome. I want students to be more excited about Wake athletics too, but I think Screamin Demons method of going about this is flawed. While their goal is to get more students to come to the games, they are actually creating an adverse effect. Because students know that they are inevitably going to get kicked out, they don’t even sign up. I have heard people say that they aren’t going to do Screamin’ Demons because they know they cannot balance the work load, their other extracurricular activities and still only miss one game per semester. For many it simply isn’t possible. If we were a school where there were more students interested in going to the game than were student tickets available then maybe this current system would make sense. But, let me ask you this: if there is supposedly so much interest among Wake students, then why has Screamin’ Demons held a dozen basketball sign-ups? Answer is easy, they can’t fill the seats.

While I don’t actually know of anyone who has been kicked out for their absences, (although this column may warrant the first) I would advise SDexcuses to lighten up, at least until they can fill the seats. Screamin’ Demons, you need to refocus your effort and remember what you are doing: creating excitement around Wake athletics. Because right now the spiraling gold and black on your T-shirts is the enthusiasm of Tie-Dye Nation being flushed down the drain.