Unleash the spirit: Homecoming Committee coordinates pep rally to promote student involvement

Jayda Hall // Sports Director

The Homecoming Committee coordinated the “Blue and Gold Unleashed” pep rally in Panther Square at the Biscayne Bay Campus for students to release their inner Panther Pride for the University.

The event took place on Monday, Oct. 17 and featured the “Trail of the Torch,”  an on-campus tradition organized by the Alumni Association that brings the FIU community together to light the torch of knowledge, service and opportunity. The torch was lit in Panther Plaza and held by Kaila Jospitre, a junior studying marketing.

But before the torch was kindled, students had the opportunity to take photos in a booth provided by Miami Photo Booth, get body paintings done by Lola’s Signature Events and show off their moves in a dance battle against Roary, FIU’s mascot.

Although some may be unfamiliar with battling against mascots, Nora Morales, a junior studying hospitality management, said she’s done it before.

“It was a lot of fun,” Morales said. “It was my second time doing something like that with a mascot so it was nice bringing that around again. On my last day of high school, we had the Florida Panthers’ mascot for the hockey team come to the school, and we had a dance battle. I won.”

Some students thought the pep rally was a success. Akeem Robinson, a junior studying hospitality management, said it had a good turnout and he enjoyed himself.

Robinson also felt the event would getting more students to participate in events in the future.

“Now that we have student housing on board, I feel like more and more opportunities are growing here at the BBC,” he said. “The event brought more awareness and had different people coming out and asking ‘what is this all about?’”

Aside from Roary, the cheerleaders, Golden Dazzlers and a few football players were at the pep rally.

Napoleon Maxwell, a sophomore running back, thought the event turned out better than they expected.

“It was wonderful. I’ve never been to this campus before and I didn’t know how this event would turnout,” Maxwell said. “We had a couple students come on the dancefloor, sing along to songs and it was better than I thought it would be.”

Fred Russ, a junior linebacker, was also surprised at the turnout.

“It was a lot more people that showed up than I thought,” Russ said. “This is a really good campus. It’s major support and love here. We love it. A lot of people were unaware of the things that we do on campus, but this opened up their eyes that this is the way we show school spirit.”

The Homecoming Committee also provided a bounce house, DJ, free coffee provided by Geico and 30 boxes of pizza prepared by Little Caesars.

While the event was a success, chair of the Homecoming Committee, Marquele Brown, said it wasn’t easy planning the event.

“It was definitely difficult because we had to get the cheerleaders, football team, Dazzlers and other departments to be a part [of it] but I’m so happy that everyone was able to come,” said Brown. “The students loved it. We had a bunch of giveaways and we had great attendance.”

Brown also expressed that her goal is to continue the tradition of having a pep rally during homecoming week every year.

“Students need to bring their blue and gold,” she said. “We are all Panthers, and we are FIU. Let’s show our Panther pride.”