Game Day in the Scorching Heat.

It was about mid-day  in and the NMSU girls soccer team was playing the UNLV.  I arrived to the game about 5 minutes after the game started.  The stands were not filled with as many people this time.  The amount of parents that showed up to the game were the same, but the amount of college students that showed up was seminally low.  I don't know if this could be due to the big football game last night or high temperatures

 I sat in the middle of the stands to get a good vantage point of the surrounding people.  About 6 adult couples sat behind me in the back of the stands and all of them were wearing an Aggie shirt and shorts.  Also,  I noticed that every single person who sat in the back were holding large umbrellas to block them from the heat.  Another interesting thing I noticed was only the females were holding on to the large umbrellas, while males sat under them or refused to use the shade the umbrella provided. I found this even more interesting, when i looked at other people in the stands.  Only females above the age of 30 used umbrellas during the game except for one man sitting alone who sat to the far side of the stands.  Also the people who used umbrellas either sat at the top of the stands or to the far sides.  I think the reason why was so the umbrellas not block the view of the game of the people sitting in the middle.  

Most of the males sitting within the stands were wearing baseball caps.  Most of the male parents or adults above the age of 30 had NMSU logo or mascot on them, while most of the younger adults were wearing a variety of different caps from baseball teams, football teams or just a plain hat.  There was a couple of elderly males in the stands who wore a wide rim hat to protect them form heat.  On the other hand Females did not have the consistency as the males did.  However, if the women was not holding on to the umbrella they were either wearing a gardeners hat (large brim hat) or a visor.  

During the game,  many of the spectators put on sunscreen to protect them from heat.  I noticed not every one in the stands actually brought sunscreen.  Two of the female adults were passing the bottle around to people around them mostly to the college student who were ill prepared.   I was directly asked by one of them, if i wanted some sunscreen, I accepted the offer and applied it to my self.  One women sitting to my right had two younger boys around the age of 4 and 6 .  Twice during the game the mother would put sunscreen on her kids and both times the kids would throw a fit about applying some more.  Usually only women actually carried any sunscreen in there purses or bags, while the men did not carry any sunscreen at all.  Also, the few college students that were present ant the soccer game did not carry any sunscreen that i could see.  

Another interesting thing I observed was that large majority of the college students that did come to the game were, also played other NMSU sports.  About 6 girls that sat behind me was on the swim team.  Additionally several of the guys from the basketball team also showed up with several volleyball players.  

The Shifting of Blame

The stadium was half filled with anticipation for the girls soccer team to start.  I took a seat in the stands to the left of me sat about 6 of hopeful onlooking parents.  I knew they were parents due to the line of questions they were asking about "how was your daughter was doing in school and how is she enjoying the soccer team".  The whole group to my right were dressed in Aggie T shirt with a pair of shorts because it was a hot day.

5 minutes before the game was about to begin, a group of 10 college students entered the complex and took a seat to the right.  Most of them dressed in Aggie T-shirts and either shorts or jeans.  The group consisted of 6 girls and 4 guys.  Most of them looked half asleep most likely suffering a hangover, since the game was being held midday Saturday.  The topic of discussion between the college students were about last night events and all the different parties they went to.  When the game started the college students was cheerful and enthusiastic about the team.  This was evident by the clapping and cheering and the beginning of the game.

Within, the first 8 minutes of the game, the ref blew his whistle and rewarded the opposing team a free kick.  This resulted in a goal for the opposing team.  After seeing this play, two of the college guys sitting next to me went ecstatic and made nasty comments about the ref saying " maybe you should get your eyes fixed and how much are they paying you."  The parents also sitting next to me were quite mad about the recent events.  One of the fathers was now on his feet joining the 2 male college student in there banter.  The wife of the of the angered father was trying to calm him down and make him stop yelling.  The 2 college guys also stopped after a while, i believe due to the influence of the girls sitting next to them.  This occurred several times during the game,  whenever the ref made a call that didn't benefit the the girls playing, the fans would get anger and try and put down the ref.

However, when the ref made a call that benefited the players the people who were talking bad about the ref started to cheer him saying things like "good call ref".  I think the ref in this situation is an escape goat.  An interesting aspect i learned after going to a couple of there games, that the crowd attitude toward the ref can for-tell the score of the game.  If the crowd was nice to the ref they were most likely winning would be appreciative of the ref, but if the the crowd is negative toward of the ref they were most likely loosing.

At half-time the Aggies were losing by a large margin.  Seven of the 10 college student left at half time.  The talk between 4 of them was "it is  not worth watching a losing team".  Additionally, two of them said they had somewhere to be and errands to run.  The other 3 wanted to stay and talk to the players after the game so they were going to stick around.  Meanwhile, the parents had no such talk or discussion about the leaving the game early.  I did overheard the parents talk about the coaching staff of the soccer team.  It seemed the parents contribute the potential loss to the coaching staff and not a single blame based on any of the players, which i thought was interesting.

(week 2)