by The Cowl Editor on October 20, 2017
Campus
by Thomas Edwards ’20
News Staff
Last week, Providence College welcomed this year’s athletics with the first ever Spirit Week.
The week kicked off with PC’s Men’s Soccer game against Brown at 7 p.m. and “Pink Out Friartown” where Friar’s wore pink to support the team. PC won 2-1 in overtime. Thursday brought about painting PC’s new Friar Fanatic student section banner on Slavin Lawn.
Friday, PC encouraged everyone to wear black and white throughout the day in preparation for the PC Field Hockey game vs. Georgetown at 6 p.m. and PC Volleyball game vs. Xavier at 7 p.m.; Field Hockey won 4-3, Volleyball won in 4 sets. Men’s Soccer played again on Saturday defeating Seton Hall 3-1 before kicking off Late Night Madness. “We thought bringing in a big performer for Late Night Madness would really cap the week really well,” said Dean of Student Affairs Steven Sears. Lil Uzi Vert performed at Late Night Madness to a packed Peterson Center.
Following Late Night Madness on Sunday was the Women’s Soccer game vs. Georgetown, winning 1-0. Volleyball lost to Butler 3 sets to 0. Men’s Hockey lost to Boston College 4-3 in overtime.
What brought about the first ever Spirit Week was student affairs and athletics working together to “do more and more in getting students to see what’s out there in athletics and have better experiences,” said Dean Sears. “By combining our programming and putting on really good events not just going to a soccer game but having food and having different types of drinks and even bands at events, we have found more and more students are coming to watch the Friars play.”
The reasoning behind the recent collaboration between student affairs and athletics is a want for students to “go to a game and really experience being a Friar,” said Dean Sears. PC wants to really bring its student community together as a whole at these events. “The only thing we all have in common, no matter what, we’re all Friars, and that’s what we want, we want that commonality, something that we all see in each other,” said Dean Sears describing the goals of the “perfect marriage” of Student Affairs and Athletics.
“Spirit Week is just the beginning,” said Dean Sears. Moving forward from Spirit Week, student affairs will assess every aspect of the week to see where they can improve for next year’s Spirit Week and events this year. For the remainder of this year the focus will be on marketing certain games to get as many students as possible to really drive home the Friartown spirit.
As Dean Sears put it, “Looking at what went well, taking counts, assessing, asking students, getting input, did this work well, was this food good, should we have had hot dogs and hamburgers instead of pizza, these little things matter.” Moving forward, McPhail’s will begin having hockey and basketball viewings for away games so students can still gather and be involved.
The goal of the alliance between student affairs and athletics is to really build that Friar spirit that’s here all the time. Whether it be through events going on all around campus, or just posters, for students to be able “to know they’re in Friartown without even thinking about it.”