
Originally Posted by
eaglesinsider
All I will say is that anybody who rags on McD for attendance needs to remember that they're trying to fill a 5,000 seat stadium with only 500 students in the HS, of which about 100 are 5-day boarders who live far away and 40 are on the varsity football team. Also, 2,500 of those seats are on the visitor's side, and besides Gilman, I've never seen another opponent (CHC included) come anywhere close to filling up their side of the stands. Pre-Davis era (2008), I remember seeing about 10 CHC fans for the season opener of CHC at McD. I think St. Paul's had better support when they played at McD that year.
No other MIAA school comes close to a stadium of that size, CHC is the closest at 3,000 (I'm talking actual number of permanent seats, not how many people/temporary bleachers you can squeeze in to fudge the numbers), Loyola is about 600, Spalding is about 1,200, MSJ is about 1,000 and Gilman is probably about 600 (again talking only permanent seats).
Most schools in this state would be thrilled with 2,500 in attendance, and it would be over capacity for most stadiums in this state, but that number would look like a small crowd at John McDonogh Stadium because it would only fill the stadium half way. Heck, I don't think there's a non-DI/1-AA college in this state with a bigger stadium than McD's.