At any given Fairfield sporting event, you can easily spot a mass of students beaming in red and aggressively cheering for their peers. One might call it an influx of school spirit, but its formal name is actually “Stags In The Stands”.
Stags In The Stands is a student organization that is in charge of rallying up as many Fairfield students as possible for every sporting event. Throughout the year, they hold multiple pop-up events to get students engaged in different activities, give out Fairfield apparel and more.
The more recent and popular promotions Stags In The Stands has been working to advertise were the $10k and $50k basketball shots, an opportunity given to a raffle winner at the participating games. Club members work in collaboration with the Athletics Department to advertise these opportunities through email blasts and social media posts, and are the ones to hand out the colorful raffle tickets.
According to Club President, Emma Falkowski ‘24, everyone at Fairfield University is a part of this group as she stated, “Once you enroll in Fairfield, you enroll in Stags In The Stands.”
There are certain members of the group, however, who serve as executive board members with roles ranging from social media to programming. At bi-weekly meetings, they brainstorm ideas to get the student body involved and plan which games they should host certain events at or what type of social graphics they want to film.
Right now, Falkowski shared that their biggest goal is getting kids into the new arena. “It’s beautiful,” shared Falkowski. “We really want to get students excited about it. But, of course, the goal every year is just to get kids excited about athletics on campus and get them to come together as a group.”
Some upcoming events include a Best Buddies collaboration on Feb. 19 as Stags In The Stands helped the organization get in contact with the ticketing workers to secure an entire section of the Leo D. Mahoney Arena for members of the Best Buddies club.
“Having these club members come to the game is very important because it builds up the Fairfield community,” Falkowski explained. Stags In The Stands is continuing to work with athletics to ensure they have a fun event with a donation table in the Mahoney Arena.
Throughout the rest of the school year, Stags In The Stands is planning other exciting events such as their annual Military Appreciation Day, which takes place during the lacrosse season. Once the sponsors pick a game day, the club will attempt to raise money for Wounded Warriors by offering raffles and selling the military apparel “Stags In Stripes”. They are also hoping to promote another $1k raffle in the upcoming months, but instead, it will be with a lacrosse ball this time around.
“Students really like to get involved at Fairfield, but they don’t necessarily know how to or they really love sports, but they don’t know if anyone else wants to go to the game with them,” Falkowski shared. “So, [Stags In The Stands] is a great way to build up the community, get the spirit going and it also helps our athletes too.”
To remain updated on games and events, keep an eye on your email inbox, Life@Fairfield or @stagsinthestands on Instagram. “If anyone wants to get involved and doesn’t know how to start, sending an email to emma.falkowski@student.fairfield.edu or direct messaging us on Instagram is a great way to start,” Falkowski advised. “We always respond, and the sooner you start, the better.”
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