Thoughts

While we were at the Villanova v. St. Johns basketball game last Saturday afternoon we witnessed a pretty interesting event. Apparently St. Johns has a pretty good program for students who attend the games. Although I am unsure of the criteria on which the competition is judged or who does the actual judging, but Saturday they chose their "fan of the year". The young man who was selected happened to have pom-poms on his knees, a crazy shiny red wig, an upper body covered in red paint and an easy-to-tear-off shirt. One might assume he dressed like this frequently when in attendance at Madison Square Garden for Red Storm home games.

His prize you ask? What could entice a group full of basketball fans to do crazy stuff in an attempt to cheer their team to victory? Offer to pay for school. This kid won a semester of free tuition.

One full semester paid for. I believe St. Johns is not a state school; one semester of tuition is a huge prize. Sure I expected to see more fans donning crazy get ups for the game based on the reward, but perhaps they did not know what the prize was. Either way I think it is a great way to get a rowdy group of students to support the team.

Do other schools do this? Do other schools do anything similar? I would be curious to know.