Aztecs Are the Hot Team That No One Wants to See

Moments before San Diego State’s basketball game Thursday night, a fellow was walking out of the tunnel and into the Sports Arena with a folding chair under each arm.

“Where are you going with those?” I asked.

Bill Finley, an assistant athletic director, gestured toward the arena. I looked beyond him at the cluster of fans on the lower level and the empty seats everywhere else.

“Why?” I asked. “It looks like you’ve got plenty out there.”

The supply certainly seemed to be in excess of the demand. I thought that taking two more folding chairs into the Sports Arena was a little like opening a brewery in Milwaukee or an art gallery in Paris or an investment company in La Jolla.

By the time the cozy little gathering of 2,414 had been guided to their seats, presumably each by a personally assigned valet, there were still more than 10,000 seats available.

Anyone wandering into the Sports Arena would have observed the sparsely populated stands and come to one of several conclusions:

--The home team was having a horrible season.

--It was raining so hard I-8 was under three feet of water.

--Legionnaire’s Disease was traced to the facility.

All of the above would have been erroneous conclusions. The Aztecs are off to the best start in their Division 1 history, not a drop of rain had fallen, and the Sports Arena is a 100% sanitary facility if you wash your hands after touching your chair.

But another thought occurred to me. It was quite depressing. Could it be that the notorious Donald T. Sterling was right when he moved the Clippers to Los Angeles? Could it be that San Diego simply is not a basketball town?

I would hate to pat Sterling on the back and say, “Donald, old buddy, I kept telling you a winner would pack ‘em in, but darned if you weren’t right. I take back everything I’ve ever said about you being a two-faced, opportunistic, carpetbagging egotist. I was only half right.”

“Nice of you to be so kind,” Sterling would respond, if he would respond at all. “You guys got a winner down there?”

“San Diego State,” I would advise him, “is off to an 11-2 start. Tops in the Western Athletic Conference. Even went up to Wyoming and Air Force and won a couple. Then drew 2,414 for their first WAC game at home.”

I know how Donald T. would respond. He would suggest that Smokey Gaines move San Diego State to Los Angeles and play its home games in the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

That, of course, would not work.

However, I can sympathize with Gaines when he bemoans the Aztecs’ lack of a home-court advantage. He realizes it’s not a home- court advantage at all. It is a home- crowd advantage.

What the Aztecs encounter is hostility on the road and friendly apathy at home.

Take the 1983-84 season, for example. The Aztecs went to BYU and played before 21,365 persons, but only 5,472 when BYU came here. They played before 17,946 at New Mexico and 2,169 against New Mexico here. More? Try 12,222 at Texas-El Paso and 3,866 here and 11,506 at Utah and 2,786 here. SDSU’s top six crowds were on the road.

The Aztecs’ seven 1984-85 home games have drawn a total of 24,705. The hot team has been a cold ticket.

I would suggest to Gaines that he be patient, but I know he would complain he has been patient for five years. He would be wrong. The fans have been patient.

The Aztecs have been exceptional only one of those five years, that being when they were 20-9 in 1981-82. Forget the 18-10 record in 1982-83, because a fifth-place finish in the WAC was hardly enough to inspire the multitudes.

And Gaines might as well be advised that San Diego fans are slow to stir. Waiting for interest to boil is a bit like watching the proverbial tea pot.

Except for the dates when they were distributing beach towels or caps, for example, the Padres did not exactly pack them in during their run to the 1984 National League pennant. The fans didn’t work themselves into a frenzy until the end of the regular season.

The Sockers suffered through lean years with sparse crowds before they began to win and slowly build what is now a solid, vocal following.

Obviously, a team has to win in these parts--and it has to win over a period of time. Missouri may be the Show-Me State, but San Diego is the Show-Me City.

If a basketball or baseball season was a concert, San Diego fans would wait for the encore. If there wasn’t one, the concert probably wasn’t worth seeing. If there was one, it would be all they’d need to see.

That’s the way it is, Smokey. Brigham Young University may be coming to town tonight, but don’t worry about getting there early to find a place to park. They could probably hold a swap meet in the lot and have room left over.

Maybe later in the season, if the Aztecs still are rolling, interest will start to percolate. Nothing makes San Diego fans covet a ticket quite as much as being told there aren’t any.

Maybe there will come a time when it will be necessary to try to squeeze a couple more seats into the arena. But I still don’t know where Bill Finley was moving them Thursday night.