SMC's Homecoming underwhelms

On Saturday, Oct. 16 Santa Monica College hosted their annual Homecoming event. Although advertised campus wide throughout the week, the stands were barely halfway full, with most of the crowd coming from SMC athletic teams who were required to be there for the halftime presentation.

The SMC Corsairs took on the LA Southwest Cougars and accepted defeat at 27-15. The first quarter saw no points gained on either side, and the middle of the game saw a steady battle with both teams scoring one after another, but in the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth, disaster struck the Corsairs.

Both Corsair quarterbacks crumbled under the pressure, practically gift-wrapping balls and express delivering them to the awaiting Cougar corner back. Soon enough, the Cougars had their lead, and SMC was unable to fight back.

During the week prior to the homecoming game, plenty of activities were planned including poster design contests, singing competitions to see who would win the right to sing the National Anthem at the Homecoming game, and giveaways to those wearing SMC gear.

While there was a low amount of participation for all of these events, the "Homecoming Idol" competition to sing the National Anthem did produce a very talented singer for the football game, SMC student Annie Gonzalez.

Students speculated that the lack of enthusiasm for SMC's Homecoming could be due to the college being regarded as a stepping-stone to the next level, and therefore not somewhere they plan on investing school spirit or energy.

Kimberly Chavez, a sophomore at SMC, said that, "I don't really get involved on campus because I'll be transferring to USC next year. I'll probably do more stuff once I get there".

Because half of the stands were filled with SMC's fall athletic teams, who were required to be there for the presentation at half time, after half time, when they were allowed to leave, numbers decreased dramatically.

Freshman volleyball player Amelia Keeling, who did stay through the entire game said that, "it's unfortunate that so many of the athletes didn't even stay until the end. It's bad enough when no one comes to our home games, if half of the stands left after the second match, it would be even worse".