Last Saturday, Beta Theta Pi Fraternity (Beta) and the Student Government Association (SGA) co-hosted the first ever Big Blue Jay Tailgate on the Freshman Quad in an effort to bolster school spirit. The event successfully rallied over 450 Hopkins students to the first home game of the football season.
SGA Executive Secretary Kyra Toomre noted that this event was just the first in a series of upcoming initiatives to advance spirit on the Homewood Campus.
“We wanted to kick the school year off with both the pep rally, which was during orientation, and the Big Blue Jay Tailgate for the first home game in order to promote school pride from day one,” Toomre wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “We hope to continue these community and spirit building events throughout the school year.”
Senior Gilbert Pasquale, the president of Beta, and junior Hank Strmac, Beta’s public relations chairman, worked closely with SGA members to coordinate the tailgate.
“We felt our interests in barbecue, socializing and sports could help us plan a good tailgate,” Pasquale said.
Strmac agreed.
“Athletics are the core of school spirit at other universities,” he said. “They are an easy subject to rally around.”
Strmac explained that the fraternity wished to play a part in advancing school spirit, and thus approached SGA and proposed the event.
“We cannot thank SGA enough for helping us with the Big Blue Jay Tailgate,” Strmac said. “Working in collaboration with them was an absolute pleasure, and greatly contributed to the event’s success.”
Beta brothers and SGA members collaborated with Bon Appetit, the new on-campus dining service, to cook hamburgers, beans, cookies and over 250 pounds of pulled pork.
“We were very pleased with the turnout of the event itself,” Strmac said. “By the end, every ounce of food we prepared was gone.”
In addition to barbeque, the tailgate included spirit-gear giveaways, free t-shirts, four-vs.-four touch football and cornhole. Cornhole, a bean bag toss game, is a staple at Beta’s events. In fact, the fraternity plans to host a Cornhole Classic philanthropy event during Greek week in early October.
“The event was great,” senior Tyler Barnum said. “The weather was perfect — just the right temperature and a splash of sunshine — and everyone seemed excited for the game.”
Due to the large turnout, Barnum, A Beta brother, believed the event offered a fun opportunity for students of every year to hang out before the game.
“I’m from the Midwest, so of course I spent most of my time at the cornhole boards, but I also liked being able to walk around on a beautiful day and chat with some old friends,” Barnum said.
Strmac believes that the exceptionally high attendance at the football game can be directly attributed to the tailgate.
“Our intent was to increase attendance and participation at the football game, and we feel we accomplished that goal,” he said. “Now it’s up to us to continue to increase attendance for the rest of the season!”
Barnum agreed that the turnout was legendary.
“I haven’t seen a Hopkins football crowd like Saturday’s in a long time,” Barnum said. “So many students wish we had the strong sports culture other schools have, but the only thing stopping us, is, well, us. I expect big events like this one will do a lot to help students recognize that cheering can be just as useful as studying.”
According to Toomre, apart from Fiji’s Islander and The Push events, as well as Beta’s last-minute 5K run to commemorate the Boston Marathon bombings last spring semester, the SGA has never co-sponsored an event with a fraternity of this nature. She encourages other Greek organizations and student groups to do so.
“Partnering with other organizations for events is a great way for the SGA to allocate its resources. We have many capital and communication abilities that other groups lack, and by partnering together, we can bring those assets and delegate some event planning in order to devote more time to other important initiatives for the Hopkins community,” Toomre wrote.
SGA Executive Vice President Janice Bonsu claims that the SGA anticipates hosting one more football tailgate this fall and two tailgates in the spring semester for lacrosse.
Bonsu also cited the launch of The Freshman Experience seminar course this semester as part of SGA’s initiative to “instill a sense of school pride and inclusion” by teaching students the history of the University. The idea was inspired by a dinner with President Daniels last fall, and was spearheaded by the SGA Student Services Committee.
Aside from these events, the SGA is currently working with the Hopkins Barnes & Noble to create a vintage Hopkins clothing collection and to establish days for students to buy discounted apparel in order to promote more school spirit.
“Seeing the school’s push for greater school spirit over the past several years, especially the last year or so, has been interesting,” Barnum said. “A lot more events are being offered to get students to relax and have fun, like NestFest last spring, and between Orientation’s huge success, the Charles Street renovation, athletic dominance in the Centennial Conference, and a plush new dining service (which, by the way, is too good for silly underclassmen) the school has never seemed so enthused and optimistic.”
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