At the end of the eighth inning in Tuesday night’s game at Boshamer Stadium the UNC-Wilmington crowd kicked up a ‘SEA-HAWKS’ chant.
That didn’t sit well with North Carolina skipper Mike Fox.
Before he was even asked a question after UNC’s 4-2 win, a very animated Fox had something to say about the atmosphere.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to change something here at the Bosh. You can write that down if you want.”
It wasn’t just that the Seahawks fans were loud, it was that the Tar Heel fans weren’t loud enough for Fox.
“Our crowd didn’t even stand up right there with two strikes and two outs when we’re getting ready to win the game against an in-state opponent that’s a good team—probably going to be in our regional,” he said. “At least you can stand up the last out of the game, the last pitch of the game.”
Apparently, this isn’t a problem that Fox has just noticed tonight.
“We’ve been talking about our crowds here for two or three years and I don’t know what else we can do baseball wise. I feel like we’ve got a pretty good product out there one the field. We’ve got a beautiful new stadium with great sight lines. We do have a parking deck that’s close.”
Fox said that now that the students are gone from campus games need be affordable to families and next year when the students come back he wants to find ways to get more of them out to games.
Fox was so amped about it he even went so far as to bring up the notorious ‘wine and cheese’ reference.
“It’s a little bit of that wine and cheese—spoiled crowd. We’ve got to get away from that somehow,” Fox said, “I don’t know how. I’ve never been this vocal about it, I never have. We just come in here, we play, we win the games but I’m starting to get annoyed by it and irritated by it because I think our kids deserve better.”
He wanted to make sure to point out that he was not displeased with the efforts by the baseball staff and promotional department and has always appreciated the work that they do. But ultimately, Fox wants more backsides in the seats, and he wants them involved.
“It is a Tuesday night, and there’s school still going on – I get all that but we should have more people here than we had tonight,” he said, “And then once we get them here, we’ve got to get them involved, we’ve got to get them going in the game, we’ve got to get them to stand up.
“Whether we need a mic man or maybe we need somebody on top of the dugout, I don’t know what it’s going to take but if it doesn’t happen this year, it’s going to happen next year because I’m going to do whatever I can, whatever I’m allowed to do.”
Attendance at Tuesday’s game was 1,159 but there was a sizeable group of teal shirted fans along the first base line.
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