When you walk around the campus of Millersville University, the buzz around the conversation with students is about classes, upcoming parties, the weather, and pressing topics in the world right now. What does not get talked about around the campus, is Millersville sports team. Millersville is a Division Two school, with 7 men’s sports programs and 12 women sports program. Sports programs like baseball, women’s field hockey, and men’s soccer have set a precedent and the bar high for the best sports teams at Millersville.
When teams come to the minds of the students at campus, they insist think they are the best teams here. Unfortunately, when the football or men’s basketball teams come up in conversation they do not generate the same reaction from the student body. In this article, we will take a deeper look at what makes some sports programs at Millersville good and some not so much.
Unfortunately, the men’s basketball team and the football team have not had the success like other teams at the University. When you look at college sports in American, football and men’s basketball attract the most attention for everyone, generates the most talk around campus and the most money out of the athletic program for the school. Looking at the Millersville Football program more specifically. In the 58 years the Millersville football program has been around for they have won ten PSAC East Championships, but no PSAC Championships. The program still has a winning record at 186-168-5, but since the turn of the century they have 35 wins and 86 loses.
Millersville Football runs onto the field for their home opener in 2018. Courtesy of MU Athletics.
There a couple of things that has led to this problem for the team. The majority of students at Millersville commute to campus instead of living in the dorms. This makes it harder for the student body to attend the games. With the lack of fan support from the student body in the stands, it makes it tough for the team to play home games. Next, if you look at the recruits the football team brings in every year the majority of the players come from high school across the state of Pennsylvania. This becomes a problem when other schools, in the same section as Millersville, that have a better resume in the past couple years allows them to attract talent from all across the country not only the state.
Lastly, talking to the quarterback of the team, Colin Shank stated “Every year we continue to work hard and we have a lot of determination to get better. We know the teams we play in our section are tough to beat, but we go into every season with a great belief we can compete against them. Hopefully, we can capture that same belief from the student body on campus. This will give us as a team more motivation during the games and attract more and more players to want to come to play for the team years to come.”
Colin Shank throwing a pass to one of his wide receivers against Pace University. Courtesy of MU Athletics
On the contrary, starting with the baseball team, women’s field hockey, and the men’s soccer team as the best sports programs here at Millersville. What makes these three teams the best here at Millersville is their record and championships they have won over the past couple years. Looking into the baseball team for additional information. The Millersville baseball has a historic pastime that has set the goal every year for the team to be higher than it’s previous. A look back to their last trip to Nationals in 2016
Millersville baseball celebrates a tournament win against Mercyhurst in 2016. Courtesy of LancasterOnline.
With five PSAC Championships and 11 PSAC East Championships in the programs past, the baseball team is determined to keep winning.
The baseball team unlike the football team, gets recruits from all over the country due to their impressive record each year Talking to the teams left fielder, sophomore Mark Miller, stated “The first time I came to Millersville University on my recruitment visit, I knew right away how determined this program was to continue to strive for more championships. I mean no disrespect when I say we work harder than any other sports program here at Millersville. We are up at five every morning for team workouts starting in August, seven months before the season starts.”
Junior relief pitcher Jacob Bowman also chipped in “Yes I agree, we continue to set the bar high every day. It feels like we have the responsible to keep up our great work ethic and keep winning games, not only for us but when everyone on campus expects us to win a championship every year.” With the pressure and exception of the student body focused more on the baseball team than any other sports program at Millersville; they continue to focus on their goal of winning another championship. They do not get too cocky despite what everyone around them are saying and do not let the distractions get in the way of what is important to them.
Hopefully, in the future to come the men’s basketball team and football will continue to improve and get better. This would be great for the athletic program at Millersville to have a majority of the teams to be at the top of their leagues and winning championships. It would uplift the student body to be proud of what Millersville student athletes have achieved.
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