The Idaho women’s basketball team won the Western Athletic Conference Championship Saturday, earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 28 years.
In the world of college sports, especially at the University of Idaho, football and men’s basketball are the most popular — to the point of overshadowing more successful Vandal teams.
The Idaho women’s cross-country team has won the WAC Championship three years in a row, and last year the Idaho men won the indoor and outdoor track and field championship.
Idaho isn’t exactly known for the excellence of its football and men’s basketball programs. In fact, it’s often the negative aspects of those programs, such as the inadequacy of the Kibbie Dome and outstanding losing records that receive the most attention. But this negative perception shouldn’t extend to the successful athletes and programs we do have at UI.
Just because the game doesn’t take place in the Kibbie Dome doesn’t make it any less important to our university. Throughout this season, there was little to no student representation at the women’s basketball games. UI didn’t post about the WAC win on its website or Facebook until late Monday — almost two full days after one of the most significant wins for Idaho in a quarter-century.
As a campus community, we should celebrate this win and support the women’s basketball team as they advance. All of our teams rely on UI students, faculty and staff for encouragement, and it’s not often we have an opportunity of this magnitude to celebrate and be proud of who we are as Vandals.
Sometimes, especially in recent media coverage, it seems UI’s negative aspects are stressed, such as student deaths and the college drinking culture. But athletics is a positive aspect of our university that continues to be a source of school spirit.
Our university has talented athletes who commit themselves to excellence in the name of our school. Even
if you aren’t a sports fan,
the WAC Championship is a victory every Vandal can be proud of.
Let’s not ignore lesser-known Vandal teams because they don’t wear football jerseys.
— KM