Don’t evict occupants in EWU’s ‘house’

In these dark days when the price of newsprint makes platinum a bargain fishwrap, the student paper at Eastern Washington University breezily devoted an open page to school spirit this week – “OUR HOUSE” emblazoned in red, suitable for taunting.

And they were popular props Thursday night at the Eagles’ rematch with Montana – unmistakably a good sign for print journalism, where even the small victories are celebrated like blowouts.

Not that we weren’t amused by other messages on display at Reese Court, in particular one that read “Montana = Canada Jr.”

This was undergraduate non-sequitur at its finest. What could this possibly mean? That Montana continues to be plagued by rogue French-speaking counties? That Montanans are noted for their well-observed, self-deprecating humor? That “aboot” is creeping into conversations in Butte and Fort Benton?

These are questions to be given serious thought, along with “What the hell happened to the Eagles?” – thundered as they were 68-46 by Montana in their house, upper case not required.

Defense? The Eagles simply didn’t mess with it after halftime. Rebounds? Another refresher course needed. Dealing with gadget zones? You’d think the Eagles would have seen it all this year, but somehow the Grizzlies managed to make Rodney Stuckey mortal again.

In the last 12 minutes, Eastern made 2 of 9 shots and turned the ball over seven times.

This was Sasha Cohen falling through the ice, or perhaps being pushed through it.

The good news is that no real damage was done to Eastern’s hope of hosting a first-round game in the Big Sky Conference postseason tournament. A modest ambition, yes, but a worthy one.

Still, it does no one any good to get undressed in front of the home folks.

“Our students have been phenomenal this year,” acknowledged coach Mike Burns. “Obviously, we want to do well as a team, but I think our staff and the kids wanted to play well for these fans tonight.

“They deserved a great performance and I’m just sorry we weren’t able to give them one.”

So maybe it’s as good a time as any to bring this up.

Almost without anyone noticing, the Eagles have a nice little thing going in Reese Court. The audience Thursday night topped 3,000 – the first time that’s happened in two years, but just as notable is the fact that it only happened twice in the watershed season of 2004 prior to EWU hosting the Big Sky tournament. Those were heady days; these are making-headway days, coming off last year’s 8-20 disaster.

The student section may not be in Duke’s league or even that school across the county that need not be mentioned, but they pretty well fill the south bleachers and they get noisy and even bought themselves some T-shirts.

There’s, well, some atmosphere.

Eastern would like there to be even more, which is why the school wants to do a bit of Reese remodeling – seats in the lower end zones, suites in the west mezzanine

“We just want to get more of a ‘bowl’ feel in here,” said interim athletic director Pam Parks. “We want to get more fans in the facility because that brings in more money, but we also want to create more of a home-court advantage.”

This is an even worthier ambition. And here’s some worthy advice:

Don’t mess with the students.

An ugly rumor had Eastern considering moving the kids to the new end zones to open up the south side to, well, them’s that got bucks. Parks admitted it had been discussed but said that, “I think we’ll look at some other options there.”

Hallelujah.

Like most schools of its ilk – mid-major, low-major, medium-warm major – Eastern grapples daily with fiscal dragons, and they must be held at bay so Mike Burns has a tank of gas to go find someone who can score when Rodney Stuckey can’t.

But as much as the Eagles get tired of hearing about the school that need not be mentioned, surely they can see the value in how its student fans have been accommodated. And if that’s not instructive enough, they can consult their Montana friends, who about a decade ago shunted their students to the end zones and snuffed what at one time had been one of college basketball’s most vicious venues. The fans are beginning to come back, but the old atmosphere has not been replicated.

What point is there in alienating a student fan base that is just beginning to find itself?

“We want to make a larger area for our top-tier donors,” said Parks, “but we have to figure out our best alignment for that. We also want to make it a great student facility as well. We just have more planning to do.

“It’s going to take creativity. But we can do that.”

They have to. After all, as important as it is that the house is worth something, the most important consideration is that it’s theirs.