Collegiate Times

'Orange Mann' shows his best celebration to the judges at the Hokies on Fire tryouts that were held Oct. 13 in Squires Student Center.

The student section is finally changing!

Unfortunately, seating remains the same, so all students will still be confined behind the basket in Cassell Coliseum, not wrapped around the court like so many other schools with intimidating venues.

The changes, however, stem from the Student Government Association program, Hokies on Fire. 

This season, Hokies on Fire picked 15 energetic basketball fans to serve as the “Generals of the Cassell Guard” to lead the entire student section with chants displayed on a white board.

These 15 students received free season tickets in the front row paid for by the SGA, a cost of $1,170, and will attend both men’s and women’s basketball games.

Each general may miss one game without an excuse, and should they miss another, their front row tickets will be taken away as well as their privileges to the ticket lottery. The generals are also not allowed to drink alcohol 24 hours prior to a game, no matter their age, or they will be dismissed. 

Chant guides, which are used at schools such as Duke and UVa, will be passed out to students prior to the game in an effort to get the entire section involved. 

In addition to the chant guides, Hokies on Fire will be moving the “Cassell Guard” student section as a whole from a medieval castle theme towards a more modern army theme where students will be encouraged to dress up in camouflage and paint their faces. 

Despite Cassell Coliseum being recognized as one of the most intimidating venues in the Atlantic Coast Conference already, Hokies on Fire Director Abby Boggs, a senior, and Assistant Director Kaitlyn Tiplady, a sophomore, felt change was needed.

“It’s coming away from that old castle type of thing, but at the same time, a medieval castle thing isn’t something that’s very easy for students to incorporate into the student section, and our student section didn’t have an identity,” Tiplady said. “What Abby and I want to do is make basketball games where you want to be when they’re playing, and when you’re doing an army theme, it’s a lot easier for people to get involved.”

“Kaitlyn and I really wanted to get the basketball atmosphere at Virginia Tech as crazy and as spirited as possible,” Boggs said. “We looked at the name and the meaning of “Cassell Guard,” and we spoke with athletics about it, and we were like, ‘Can we kind of revamp this, give it a new theme, give it a new meaning’, to get students to feel like they have an identity at games.”

Neither Boggs nor Tiplady have actually purchased student season tickets before, though Boggs did receive recruiting tickets in the past from her brother Ben, who is a freshman on the team this season.  
Some of the 15 students involved in the new group of generals will be familiar to Tech football and basketball fans.

 Phillip Zellner, who calls himself “Leonidas of Blacksburg” and was voted the “Ultimate Hokie Fan” on the Roanoke Times Web site will be one of the generals, as well as Ryan Watson, also known as “Orange Mann.”

Zellner believes that as long as the new program is conducted professionally, the student body will embrace the new changes even though it could possibly take away from the Lane Stadium intensity already present during games.

“Any time you try to do something new, there’s going to be people that don’t like it,” Zellner said. “I think that it will catch on, especially with the freshmen.  This is their first college basketball game they’ve been to … I think if we do a good enough job with it people will catch on.”

The chant guides, which will also contain an opponent roster, will be put together by the generals on a game-by-game basis with in-depth research done on individuals of the away team to potentially rattle their players.  Hokies on Fire also hopes to put together a Web site where students can send in chant ideas as well.

Before any chants get into the guide, however, they must be approved by Brent DiGiacomo, the Director of Marketing and Promotions in the athletics department.  The Hokies Respect campaign will be strongly considered when approving chants.

“Obviously, we’re doing all of these with Hokies Respect in mind as we kind of create these chant guides, keeping it clean fun for the students,” DiGiacomo said. “The chant guide has to be approved through us first.”

The generals will also get their own entrance into the student section before the basketball teams come onto the court.  Generals, led by the Hokie Bird, will walk down to their front row seats from the three concourses that lead to the student section with their very own video playing on the video board.

Overall, DiGiacomo feels that the new changes will improve the game day experience for both the students and the team.

“I think the (team is) just excited to have an organized effort from our students.  Coach Greenberg is big on having the students as part of the team… Students are a big fan of his, so that’s one of the main reasons why this was created. “

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