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I am writing to you all today to voice my frustrations regarding having fans in the Carrier Dome. 

I first want to start this by applauding the efforts of Syracuse University in the midst of this pandemic. I have plenty of friends from back home who were not able to have in-person classes this entire year. I am thankful for the fortitude and effort that my university has had thus far to ensure some kind of in-person experience. 

When I was deciding on where I was going to attend college, I knew I wanted to attend a school with renowned sports teams and school spirit. SU fit the mold, and I now have fond memories of watching the classic Clemson upset, Tyus Battle’s game winning shot over Georgetown and Dom Madonna’s full field pass to beat Army in triple overtime. 

As an employee for the football team in the recruiting department, not being able to watch the team in-person this season was upsetting but understandable. However, I held out hope that we would possibly watch basketball from inside the Dome, considering SU has the largest on-campus venue for the sport in the entire country. 

I guess my hopes were set too high. 

Monday was our penultimate home game of the season for men’s basketball. This means that, for my senior year, I’ve gotten to see a grand total of zero combined basketball and football games. I must be honest, this is a complete and utter joke and feels like a slap in the face to the senior class. On Feb. 10, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that stadiums with more than 10,000 fans could open at 10% of their maximum capacity on Feb. 23, meaning the Dome could hold nearly 5,000 fans.  

Given Cuomo’s guidelines, a successful reopening could have meant that fans could see two women’s basketball games and two men’s basketball games. However, since the state hasn’t yet approved SU’s plan for reopening and our last home basketball game of the season is Wednesday, we may not be seeing any.  

When Cuomo announced the reopening of stadiums, Syracuse Athletics released a statement saying, “Syracuse University continues to seek counsel and support from New York State as we work toward safely reopening the stadium – first to a small group of students, and eventually to more fans from the broader community, public health permitting.” 

At this point, New York state had about two weeks to approve SU’s plan to welcome students back to the Dome, and it ultimately failed. How is this possible? The agreement was that students are required by the university to get a COVID-19 test every week. Therefore, students should have been allowed inside of the Dome contingent on them receiving a negative COVID-19 test in the past week. This is not exactly rocket science from the outside looking in. 

As of Monday, there are 32 active cases of COVID-19 on campus and 98 students in quarantine. For a school with over 22,000 students, these numbers are low. 

For a student who has adhered to every single guideline that the university has put forth, I’m disappointed that students haven’t been able to go to a basketball game by Feb. 23. If professors are able to hold a 100-person lecture in the Dome, how are we not able to spread out students so that we could have watched a game for the last time? 

Frankly, I feel this entire process has been a complete failure of governance and leadership. The state should have recognized that opening the Dome to students is a logical step forward. Students are desperate for a semblance of the “normal” college experience.

I felt that my voice and the sentiments of fellow students and graduating seniors must be heard at this point. We deserve transparency as to why we were not allowed to watch a basketball game at the end of the season. 

As a big fan of lacrosse, I am hoping that we can all get our act together so that we can get fans in the stands for a team that has a great shot of going to Championship Weekend. We deserve it, and it is time.

Jason Resnick ‘21

Published on March 2, 2021 at 2:39 am