PEORIA – It has always been baffling how few fans showed up to support Eastern athletics. With the creation of the Blue Crew that problem was supposedly fixed.

The blue-wigged group has been present at football games and even a small contingent came out for a cross-country meet earlier in the semester.

The loyalty of Sean Anderson, a member of Blue Crew and Eastern’s student body President, to his Blue Crew family shone brightest last weekend when he championed the Student Senate to finance roughly $4,000 in bus fees to take a group of students to Eastern’s last football game, a game four hours away in Martin, Tenn.

The Panthers lost the game but the Blue Crew showed their love for the football team by applauding the players and coaches as they exited the visitors’ locker room following the defeat. That must have made the players feel proud of their school and maybe it made the players happy to have chosen to play football in a small cornfield-surrounded town in central Illinois.

But the men’s soccer team did not feel the love the football team felt in Tennessee during their Missouri Valley Conference Tournament game against Missouri State last night. The Panthers opening round game was played before just more than 40 people on a cold night in Peoria, and not a single Blue Crew member was present. No blue wigs, no shirts with the school fight song proudly displayed on the back.

The Blue Crew is a good start at a campus fan organization, but it is not perfect. It needs balance. Just because Anderson can use his pull in the Student Senate to get a few thousand dollars to take a trip to Tennessee doesn’t mean football should be the only sport to benefit from the Blue Crew.

A conference tournament game should be high on the list of events the Blue Crew should try to support.

The men’s soccer team won a tough, thrilling game, 3-1, with little more than a few family members cheering them on. Even though the game was on the road, a trip to Peoria is much shorter than a trip to Tennessee and would not take $4,000 to finance.

But the men’s soccer team is used to a small fan turnout. The small sections of bleachers at Lakeside are never filled for home games, so maybe it’s presumptuous to expect fans to make the trip two hours north when they can’t seem to walk a couple blocks to watch a home game.

All in all, the Blue Crew is a great organization, but it needs improvement.

They are doing a great job trying to recruit new members, although the majority of people signing up were probably in it for the free T-shirt.

A.J. Martin does a good job sending out messages to the Blue Crew faithful through its Facebook group, making students aware of upcoming games. Athletes always agree that fan support helps them on the field and they are appreciative of the Blue Crew.

However, when so much money is spent on a long trip to a football game and nothing is done to support a much closer tournament game, it is not fair to all the athletes working just as hard to bring home a championship to Eastern and its student body.