There are few other ways for a university to create a more intimidating atmosphere at sporting events than by starting a fan club.

Seeing students in a big section of the stadium or arena jumping around and yelling out chants, creating a sea of their team’s colors has proven to create an uninviting atmosphere for many schools year after year.

At Duke they have the “Cameron Crazies,” at Texas A ‘#38; M they have the “Twelfth Man” and at Michigan State they have the “Corner Blitz” – all fan clubs with years and years of tradition that continue to grow stronger with support each year.

Now it is BG’s turn to do the same thing.

Starting this fall, BGSU students will be given the opportunity to become part of the nation’s newest fan club, “The Flock.”

The club is a creation of the BG Athletic Marketing Office that looks to start a fan club similar to that of other college athletic fan clubs around the country.

“It’s not that we want to create this fan club,” Assistant Athletic Director of Corporate Relations Jason Horn said. “It’s that we want to expand on what we already got. It’s a way for us to do some outreach and create some programming for students that want to be involved to have that extra-special step taken.”

Just $15 dollars buys a one year membership into “The Flock” where members receive a club T-shirt, Falcon e-newsletters, a membership card, invitation to the club’s tailgate party and opportunities to win tickets to all the big sporting events like the Mid-American Conference Tournament.

Another benefit club members will receive is priority seating as the athletic events will open their gates at a set time prior to opening them up to the students and to the public.

“This doesn’t mean that other people won’t have the opportunity to get great seats,” Horn said. “This is just something special that we are doing for those people who really show that support of athletics where members of “The Flock” will get stand in this line versus the other line and get to come in first.”

Last season the student attendance average at Doyt L. Perry Stadium was 6,319. It was determined from research that the big reason for low student attendance was mostly due to the lack of students feeling a part of university athletics.

“One of the things from some research that I read from our old marketing regime was that students weren’t feeling engaged enough,” Horn said. “And this is a way for us to engage students that want to be engaged.”

To figure out how to get students engaged with the fan club the new athletic marketing department did some research of their own. This included making many phone calls to other athletic departments around the country, that have also had to start fan clubs from scratch.

“We spent a lot of time researching what other universities do,” Ticket Sales and Marketing representative Ashley Baker said. “This included other universities that are similar to our size and some larger universities. We then took a group of students as a focus group and ran some ideas by them and had them give us their input.”

All the proceeds from membership fees will go toward keeping the fan club self-supported. No funds will be taken away from other athletic programs to fund the fan club and none of the fees will go toward athletic projects like the new Sebo Athletic Center.

“We wanted to make the program something that was fiscally responsible,” Horn said. “We didn’t want to make it something that was outrageous and have something that would cut into our normal athletic budget.”

So far student interest in the program is unknown as membership forms are just being mailed out, but there has been a lot of positive talk about it on Web sites. Fans on the Web site Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com have been debating whether the program will work or not and so far their responses have shown favoritism toward what the program can offer.

Jacob Gill, sophomore, is one student in favor of the program and he feels the athletic department has made a big advancement towards making those disengaged students on campus feel more engaged.

“This club will give the fans something to be a part of instead of just showing up,” he said. “Most of the people I’ve talked to feel the university should have a group so it’s good to see that the university has gotten something started. It’ll give the team something to look forward to seeing hopefully large groups of fans that are students instead of parents.”

Membership to the club can be paid for using student bursar accounts or any other means of pay. For more information on the club you can contact the marketing office at (419) 372-4376 or go online to www.bgsufalcons.com.