East Carolina entered their Week 8 home game against BYU with a 1-6 record, their worst seven-game start since 2003. Their average margin of defeat was 33.2 points, all four home losses came by at least 20 points and they were 2-15 since a win over North Carolina State in Week 2 of last year.
“I’m asking everybody this homecoming weekend to come out and support the Pirates, come out and support the university, come out and serve our colors, purple and gold,” second-year head coach Scottie Montgomery said in a press conference last week. “These guys, some of our seniors, this is their last opportunity at homecoming. We really want to make it a fantastic experience for them."
Everybody came out — to no one's surprise.
There were 38,835 people in attendance at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, bumping ECU's average attendance to 37,798, which ranks first in the AAC. The rowdy crowd enjoyed a 33-17 victory over the Cougars, just their sixth win since mid-October 2015. If the attendance average holds, it will be their second-straight season leading the conference. The Pirates averaged more than 44,000 fans last year — more than 5,000 higher than the next closest AAC team — despite registering their first sub-five-win season since 2004.
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"Pirate fans will continue to support the program because we support our players," said Mark Meltzer, a 1967 graduate of ECU (master's 1969) and season ticket holder of 48 years. "We have a deep appreciation for what they players (in all the sports) are trying to do here."
Meltzer arrived in Greenville, N.C., from New York in 1962. He hasn't left.
"I've watched the program grow from a small wooden stadium to what we have now," he said, referencing 2,000-seat College Stadium that was home to ECU football from 1949-62. "And it was done through hard work by a lot of fans and a lot people donating money and getting other people to join the Pirate Club."
The commitment isn't lost on Montgomery, who replaced Ruffin McNeill in December 2015, or current and former players, one of whom concedes that times are tough but has hope thanks to a remarkable support.
"You see a lot of upset fans right now because they really care about their program," says former quarterback Shane Carden. "When you have a strong fan base, they are going to be upset when you aren't winning, and I will always want a mad fan base than no fan base."
Carden, the 2017 AFL Rookie of the Year for the Baltimore Brigade who now lives in Ketchum, Idaho, and has a weekly segment on Pirate Radio 1250, is a California native (by way of Texas) who fell in love with northeastern North Carolina. He threw for 11,991 yards and 86 touchdowns over his final three years (2012-14), during which the Pirates won 26 games, the most over a three-year period in program history.
"I believe ECU represents this part of North Carolina so well," he says. "The people that live in eastern North Carolina can relate to the school. Greenville isn't Chapel Hill or Raleigh and it isn't trying to be. The very same with ECU. We aren't UNC or NC State and we have no wish to be like them. We are the players that weren't good enough to go to schools like that but we want to show you why we are better."
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Carden was a two-star recruit who had zero FBS scholarship offers until Central Michigan and East Carolina made offers days before signing day in 2010. He knew almost nothing about the city, school or program before arriving later that year, but it didn't long to realize it was special far beyond football.
"When I was there, there was a blue collar work ethic that I was taught by the older players and my head coach [Ruffin McNeill], who is a former ECU player. The people in that community can relate to that work ethic," he said.
"ECU is Greenville and Greenville is ECU, unlike a school that's in a bigger city where the school is just one of many different attractions. I never felt bigger than the community in Greenville. I felt a part of it, and I don't know what it feels like to play at a different school but I have been in a few other programs since and I have never had that same feeling."
Meltzer also references the cohesion of the university and city, saying there's a devotion to not only honoring the on-field successes of the athletics programs but the overall well-being of those who power the programs, the student-athletes.
"The two go hand in hand," he said of ECU and Greenville. "The fans are passionate and the town supports the program. A lot of folks are truly dedicated. My wife are I are season ticket-holders in football, men's and women's basketball and baseball. There is a unique passion here. The student-athletes will tell you that."
In a sport with non-stop personnel and coaching turnover, that unique passion is a rare and valuable constant.
"I'm not sure what is going on right now in the program," Carden says, admitting there may be lingering unrest over the McNeill dismissal and unfair burden placed on Montgomery to heal those wounds. "Something is missing though. In every program you are going to have down years, and I am fully confident ECU will be back."
Why is he so sure?
"The fans and community."
