By Colton Little
The best college traditions are not bringing an axe onto the field to show how powerful you are. It’s not slapping a sign on your way out of the tunnel. It’s not rubbing the hair of a statue that stands outside of the stadium. The best tradition in college sports is all about the tune. For decades and decades, athletic programs have been using their voices and a couple of simple band instruments to show what traditions are all about. Mesa State College just now found this simple concept of a fight song. Yeah, the fight song has been around campus once or twice. Yeah, the cheerleaders know what the fight song is. Not by choice though. And I’d say only a handful of professors and alumni know the Maverick fight song (not including the President). The fight song has been around since the beginning of time. It tells people what the college is all about in approximately 27 seconds. So why is it becoming a big deal at Mesa State in the year on 2011?
Butch Miller, Mesa State’s Athletic Director, has demanded that every varsity sport on campus know the fight song. Maybe it will bring the college closer. Maybe it will create a family amongst strangers. Maybe it will invoke a tradition. But that is all we can hope for at this point. About three weeks ago, Miller (probably with some help of the President and some other staff) came up with this idea. His thought was to build new tradition for this school. It makes sense because of the ever increasing campus size. But will it really make that much of a difference? “I don’t know the fight song and I have been going to Mesa State for three years. It is kind of an important thing to know in college. I see bigger schools like Notre Dame and Ohio State where every student who goes to an athletic match or game know their fight song by heart,” said junior baseball player Travis Moore. “I don’t see any cons to the subject.”
No, Mesa State is not a Notre Dame or an Ohio State by all means. But it would be nice to see some sort of mesh between athletes and students though. But what about students on campus who are not athletes? How many of them know the fight song? If we started a tradition that would involve the whole campus, shouldn’t everyone know the song, not just athletes? “I am all for the idea of a fight song. I think it would raise a lot more student participation at athletic venues. I think more people would come to support,” said Jake Kluge, a sophomore business major.
Traditions can come from many different things depending on the sport, but only one tradition can bring everyone together. The fight song involves everyone. When was the last time an axe involved a mass communications major? For now on let’s not assume that everyone knows the fight song because they don’t. You do know what happens when you assume. You make an…. Well you get the picture. Maybe more than 12 people will know the fight song (not including the President) after this year. I guess 2011 might teach us something. I guess 2011 will mean something.