Pep band members cheer on the men's and women's basketball teams at the MAAC tournament in Albany. (Renee Borghesi/The Mirror)
This is the first of two blog entries written by pep band members during their trip to Albany over spring break for the MAAC tournament.
The alarm clock buzzes; it’s 6:20 a.m. on Friday morning, and we need to leave by 7 a.m.
It’s the start of spring break, but we’re not going to Florida or the Dominican Republic.
Instead, a crowd of sleepy men and women board the bus outside of Alumni Hall. We are in the band, and we are going to Albany to play for the MAAC basketball tournament.
The championship went from Mar. 4 to Mar. 8. The Fairfield women’s team was first to play on Friday morning at 9:30 a.m., the start of many games to come.
Yes, it’s a little annoying to be up that early, a little frustrating to not know how many days to pack for, a little tiring to play at six games in four days, and a little unique to spend part of Spring Break in the band, but secretly we all love it. The MAAC tournament is always exciting and the group that makes up Fairfield University Pep Band is never boring.
We step into the Times Union Center, home arena for Siena. It’s a bit unnerving to see the place packed with fans and students.
Okay, we are on spring break, so we don’t expect a lot of students to come to the tournament. Still, we definitely appreciate those Fairfield fans, students and parents who did come.
When we walk in, all we can see is a sea of yellow and green. The crowd is deafening at every move Siena makes.
For the first time all year, we can barely hear heckling and cheering from our own band. The thousand Siena fans overshadow the thirty of us in the red and white rugby shirts.
It is such an incredible mixture of pride, nervousness, and excitement to be there in the middle of all of that; it brings a rush of adrenaline to every person sitting in the arena.
At the end of the tournament, each game becomes about so much more than basketball. The competition is not just limited to what takes place on the court. The fans yell at rivals, the cheerleaders cheer harder and bring out better moves than other schools, and the band plays with more intensity.
We are a small school with a small traveling fan base, a small band and good group of cheerleaders. Still, our band and cheerleaders really were better than those at the other schools. We just have more energy and talent!
This was definitely an exciting tournament year. Our school was the only one in the conference to have both the men and women’s team make it to the championship game. Our women have not been there since 2001 and our men pushed the final game into overtime!
To say that is a huge accomplishment is a gross understatement. Both of our teams made it to the final games against the teams that won last year, which is no easy feat.
We all agreed it was disappointing to not go home with a win, but just to be in the championship was amazing and brought a lot of pride to the Fairfield name.
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