Seton Hall's fifth annual Spirit Week kicks off on Feb. 16 and will run through Feb. 23. This year's Spirit Week is centered on the men's basketball game versus rival Rutgers and the women's basketball game against Louisville.
"There is a ton of events planned," Student Alumni Association President Richard Allen said. These events range from game show simulations of Deal or No Deal to bus trips to St. John's for the men's basketball game and to Good Morning America. In addition to these events, there will be a new tradition started on campus before the Rutgers game.
"It is called Bounce and Trounce. We are hoping it can be something that we can rally around," Allen said. Bounce and Trounce focuses on basketball just like the whole spirit week.
"We are going to try to keep a basketball bouncing for 24 hours before the Rutgers game," Allen said. The event will start at 5:00 pm on the day before the game and will continue until 5:00 before the game.
Throughout the day the ball will be bouncing at different locales around campus and during the night it will be kept bouncing in the Main Lounge.
"Different student groups can volunteer to bounce the ball and anyone who bounces it for over 10 minutes will get a free t-shirt," Allen said. He added that there will also be an attempt to record the number of times the ball bounces over the 24 hour period.
This year the Spirit Week was entirely student planned with only a support staff of administrators. In years past it has been organized by the administration with the exception of its first year in 2006.
"We're just excited," Nicholas Sena, Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement said, "all these student groups have come to us. They have a big plan and we're just assisting them." For example, SAB will be hosting a Battleship game on Feb. 19.
"One of the SAA's missions is to promote school spirit on campus, and we hope that there will be a good turnout to all of the events and therefore an increased level of school spirit," Allen said. Sena agreed.
"I think we will see a difference in the student body after the week as compared to the week before," Sena said. In addition to students getting involved throughout the week, the South Orange community will also be encouraged to "bleed blue."
"We are working with Village Liasons to advertise Spirit Week to [the community]," Allen said, "We will hand out Spirit Week t-shirts to employees of businesses and they can wear them to promote the week." Community members will also be invited onto campus for the different events throughout Spirit Week.
Students are able to get involved either through volunteering at events or actually participating throughout the week by signing up on SAA's website: http://www.setonhallsaa.com/. From there, a link can be clicked on to go to the Spirit Week site.
"Come out and give the events a chance because they will provide school spirit," Sena said.
Jenna Berg can be reached at jenna.berg@student.shu.edu.
