Two weeks ago, the Winnebago public and private schools in Winnebago, Nebraska, canceled Thursday, March 10 and Friday, March 11. This was not a result of parent-teacher conferences or a national holiday — it was for the state high school basketball tournament.

While I was in Winnebago over spring break on a service and justice trip, I watched as the majority of the town’s people raced to Lincoln to watch the Winnebago Indians compete in the annual state tournament, complete with a police escort and signs for each player staked along the highway. The Rev. Dave Korth — director and associate pastor of the St. Augustine Indian Mission in Winnebago — recalled the previous year’s tournament when fire trucks spewed an arch of water for the buses to drive under.

Though the Indians lost their second game in the tournament, the town’s excitement showed with signs on many storefronts and homemade posters taped up to the chain-link fences of the town’s public basketball courts. Even families without any children in attendance at Winnebago Public School made an effort to attend the game, while those who stayed home eagerly waited for updates.

Located on the Winnebago Tribe’s reservation, less than 1,000 people call Winnebago home. Coming from a populated Chicago suburb with two large public high schools, I have never experienced the small-town fervor when a local high school team advances to state. The closeness of the community and the exhilarating support seeped throughout the town, wrapping me in with it.

Creighton University is at least eight times the size of the entire population of Winnebago, Nebraska, but in comparison to many Big Ten schools, it is miniscule. With their communal support and authentic concern for others, the values and spirit I witnessed in Winnebago parallel the unity and kinship found

at Creighton.

Students certainly display this at the Creighton men’s basketball games, but to truly embrace our unique environment, we need to share equal support with those teams and organizations that are not noted on every newspaper headline. The women’s basketball team won the first three games in the Big East Tournament — I did not even hear about it until a week afterward. In addition to the lack of coverage, I too am at fault since I did not set out to learn how the women’s team did — or various other Creighton sports teams for that matter.

As a community, we need to support all our organizations — even those much less glamorous than Division I basketball and soccer. In reality, most of us probably will not rush out early on a Saturday morning to see the rowing team or other sports, but that does not mean we cannot support them, encourage them and share in both their triumphs and losses. I urge the students on these teams to reach out and share their accomplishments with the community.