Caitlin O’Halloran – Reporter
The Blue Crew attended the softball game on April 13 to support the team and offer free Garden Catering wraps for all students.
The Blue Crew is considered the spirit commission of the Student Government Association (SGA) and Campus Recreation. They represent the university’s pride.
“Basically, Blue Crew is kind of like our spirit committee on campus so our department oversees Blue Crew but basically the main goal for Blue Crew is basically to get spectators and a lot more engagement with our athletic programs and kind of just school spirit on-campus in general, but we do partner with athletics,” said the Graduate Intern for Recreation and Fitness Audrey Pancak.
Campus Recreation and Fitness is responsible for assisting with the oversight of what the Blue Crew does with events on campus. “I think it’s important because it gets students out and it gives them a break from their classes or staying in their dorms, they could come out and watch a game and enjoy food or prizes that we give away,” said sport management major Gianna Spino, a junior.
The Blue Crew represents campus by showing school spirt and finding ways to celebrate the university.
They are also represent-ed by the Office of Stu-dent Involvement, which offers a variety of different organizations that help students to get a fulfilled college experience and allow them to be able to engage with other students throughout their time on campus.
“We started this last year, so we always called it “The Tailgate Tour” so we always had some type of food or giveaway or something like that,” said Pancak. “So, we just wanted to bring it back now that they said they were going to allow Southern spectators so we thought, might as well try to bring it back and give something for the students to do.”
Some of the past events that the Blue Crew has held were things like gymnastics tailgate tour, hockey fights childhood cancer event, football tailgates and many more.
“So basically, it’s just a way to get the students engaged with all the different NCAA sports because a lot of the times you know, football and basketball are like huge, a lot of people go to those all the time, but something smaller like softball or the lacrosse games, you don’t see as much attendance so it’s kind of a way to just get more students here,” said Pancak.
At the events and sports games that Blue Crew at-tends, they often will offer students free food or free prizes they can get if they show up.
“It’s just something to get students involved, get them excited about various events on campus whether it’s sports, things that Stu-dent Involvement is doing, that Res Life is doing, stuff like that. Kind of just gives them an incentive to come out and support the school, especially after you know this year has been kind of rough so,” said Graduate Intern overseeing club sports Carson Neilander.
Now that the weather is getting warmer and events such as sports are somewhat returning to a more normal state after the pandemic, students are able to stop by these events and join the Blue Crew in showing their school pride and getting involved with different events being offered on campus.
“So, we’ll be at, I believe, women’s lacrosse next week, we’ll be at a lot of home games over the next few weeks actually and then in normal times, you could find us around move in day for Res Life, move out day, stuff like that,” said Neilander. “You know, pretty much any big event on campus, we’ll be around.”
