Will the Chambers plan work?

Coach Pat Chambers came to BU and saw a deficit of enthusiasm. And judging by the way he's handled his first few months, he's making it priority #1 to change that.

The apathetic aura surrounding BU basketball is a long-known and often-lamented fact around campus. Sure there are die-hards. But there are also box scores that show no hope of getting attendance figures out of the triple-digits. And national blogs writing about how the published figure was 276, but the in-person count was merely 147.

I don't plan on doing this all season long, but contrast the efforts of our former coach with our new one. I am one who thought Dennis Wolff was a good coach, but his outreach efforts to the student fan base consisted of a 3 minute speech at Midnight Madness. Then get out of the way and let the sports marketing department struggle to push the boulder up the mountain.

Chambers has a plan. A plan that will require a lot of time and effort, but and one he has already begun to embrace. And it's one that says get out of the way sports marketing department, I'll handle this one.

1. He started a blog. And it's not like the "The BU Blog" on the Athletic Dept website, which despite the fact that it's got good info and shows they're trying, still sounds press release-y. No, Coach's blog is obviously written by him. His "Chambers Vision" videos are awesomely hand-filmed by himself. The whole thing gives BU fans who are hungry for more to read about the team (and yeah, there's a couple of us like that). Frankly, that's why we started this blog. Does that make our blog obsolete? Don't answer that.

Go read Coach Chambers' blog: http://coachpatchambers.blogspot.com/

2. He's twittering. Like you, I thought twitter was retarded. Then Coach Chambers came on there and started spilling nuggets about recruits coming on campus and all the other good stuff I want to know about, and it forced me to check it out. And then I grudgingly admitted that there was some other cool stuff on there, so I signed up. Gratuitous pimp: Follow me here if you're so inclined - it's not all BU hoops stuff, but some of it will be - and once the season starts, look out.

Oh, and go read Coach Chambers' twittering: http://twitter.com/Coach_Chambers

3. He's going out and meeting regular students. People just like you and me! He's just going up to people and talking to them. He's going to talk to student groups and wander around the dorms. And, in a very smart move, he's trying to snag them during orientation, before they can be poisoned by the hockey-industrial complex. Does anyone remember the BU Soccer Tailgate on the first day of school last year? They just herded all the freshmen to that thing and ended up with 5,000 fans, which is just amazing.

4. He's sending PLAYERS out to meet regular students. This is something I thought they should do forever. A lot of the fans who come to the games are there because they're friends with some players and they want to support them. I started coming to some games during my sophomore year, but I didn't become a die-hard until I worked with some of the players over the summer. After that, it was cool to see guys I was friends with out there on the court.

The players need to be ambassadors for the program. I understand that they are just college kids, and they are probably a little shy to just go up to random people all the time, especially if you are freakishly tall. I would probably have a tough time with that too. But it would go so far to walk around the lunchroom at Myles or Warren and show everyone that they're students just like them. I imagine it's a lot harder for someone to blow off the basketball game if the day before Tyler Morris asked you point blank if you'd come watch him.

5. He wants to play all our home games at The Greek. Coach thinks it helps build a big-time atmosphere around the program (and probably would help attract better recruits). It's definitely a topic of contention, and has been discussed at length here and elsewhere. Are those in favor of home games at The Roof swayed at all by Coach's plans? Do you want to see evidence that his plan is working first, and then move games to Agganis? It's kind of a chicken-and-egg scenario. I am on record as being pro-Agganis though.

So that's Coach's plan as I understand it. I'm optimistic.

Here's one piece of advice I'd offer: when targeting students in the dining halls and dorms to recruit to games, go after girls. Don't just forget about them because we think of guys as more traditional basketball fans. Make them the priority. Since stereotypes are such a good time-saver, remember that girls are more willing to try new things, they make personal connections better, they are unfailingly loyal to friends, they find basketball players hot, and wherever girls go -- guys will follow.