My town has been taking a lot of heat for the lack of support for our playoff baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks. I will admit that I am ashamed that when I saw a picture in the paper of the stadium with the whole upper deck practically empty, the middle section, half full, and the bottom section ¾ full – that is really sad. Yes, by the middle of the second inning most of the seats were full. But the town’s whole attitude toward their division winning, playoff baseball team has been pathetic. It made me think about what the reasons that this could be and I came up with three: Mutiny, getting rid of fan favorites, and losing seasons.

The first thought that came to mind was the new ownership group that mutinied versus one of the more respected sports owners that brought us the Phoenix Suns and the Arizona Diamondbacks – Jerry Colangelo. If it had anything to do with Colangelo, it seemed they got rid of it. Many people did not like that at all. After that happened, the new owners got rid of fan favorites. The team seemed to have been practically dismantled. When they choose not to pick up the biggest fan favorite’s star, Luis Gonzales, considered the face of the Diamondbacks, people just gave up on the team. It also didn’t help that the team started losing a lot and ended up in the cellar for a few seasons. To be fair to the new owners, they were trying to build the team for the long haul, not just for a season or two.

These are some of the reasons why people are not supporting the team. How does this deal with Students and Electronics? Right now a lot of electronics and semiconductor programs are having trouble recruiting students. The mutiny that happened wasn’t new ownership, but the fact that the old way of doing things is not working and the students are mutiny by not signing up for technology or electronics programs, but going to other areas. Technology is outstripping textbook knowledge. Change is happening so fast that it is hard for students, teachers, even industry to keep up.

Fan favorites are not around anymore. Students don’t grow up taking apart radios or really anything because if they do, they just find an integrated chip. They don’t find that interest at an early age. One of the things I will always remember for why I became interested in electronics was watching my dad working to build stuff from Heathkits, or soldering on some electronics thing to repair. I don’t think my dad has used his soldering iron for over ten years, because there is nothing he owns that would require it. Maybe it is technology and the integrated chip that killed the interest in electronics. No cause and effect to witness, except you remove the chip and nothing works. So “fan favorites” of circuits and vacuum tubes were traded away and exploratory curiosity of “how does this work, what does this do,” died away (don’t get me wrong, I like the integrated circuit and the compactness it brings).

Now the electronics programs are in the cellar in many schools. Students are opting to go into other fields because of… if I could name the exact reasons, then everyone would know what to do. Maybe that is why I am excited about the Esyst program that my fellow cubie, Tom McGlew is heading up (organizing?). We were speaking the other day and he told me, “The courses they are teaching today are the exact same courses I took thirty years ago.” Thirty years ago my dad was soldering, working with transistors and occasionally vacuum tubes. Today it is integrated circuits. And the courses haven’t changed. That is what Esyst is to do – update the courses, bring it into the 22nd Century.

And when Electronics is playing for a division title – you can bet there will be a lot of people packing into the stadium after the first inning, jumping late onto the bandwagon. Now while my Diamondbacks maybe down three games to zero now, and possibly out tonight, there is not much I can do to help them (edit: especially since they did not win last night) but say, “Go Diamondbacks! Next Year only starts in four months.” Let’s not let electronics programs go the same way – “Go ESyst!”

(Edit – It’s over. Boston swept the Rockies.)

Mark Viquesney