The slogan for this year's University Day was "Come Home to the Hall." The slogan, along with the scheduled activities and parent weekend that occurring throughout the weekend, would seem to imply that University Day is almost like Seton Hall's homecoming.
Although we might not have an official homecoming, as we don't have a football team, ("Seton Hall Football: Undefeated Since 1982,") University Day was a great stand-in. Alumni were invited to come back, parents of students visited, and there were many fun activities, such as the 25th Annual Farinella 5K run, the Theater-inthe- Round children's production of Beauty and the Beast, the WSOU Street Patrol, and the FreeCycle Action Sports Team's BMX "Big Air" Show scheduled.
However, no Pirates took the field for a home game on University Day. Nor were there any home games for the entire weekend. It is not as though the day was entirely void of athletic events.
According to the online activity schedule, there was a kid's baseball clinic, an old timer's baseball game, and a Pirates' baseball scrimmage planned before the day's inclement weather became a factor in the day's events.
But there was no main event. No Pirates game under the lights to cheer on and bleed blue-and-white for. One of the main functions of University Day is to build Hall spirit, it would have been nice to see something to be truly spirited about. We are a Division I Big East school, after all.
When I was a freshman last year, my family came from Long Island to visit me on campus for the weekend, and I took my brothers (16-years-old and 13-years-old) to a volleyball game, a men's soccer game, and a women's soccer game. This year, after the BMX "Big Air" show, I was unsure what I could do with them. They are a little old for such activities as the Beauty and the Beast show and the kids' baseball clinic, as good as I am sure both of these events were.
Leaving my family aside, though, it would have seemed natural to have a true sports game at the Hall for Pirates fans young and old to enjoy.
Daniel Kuberka, associate director of Athletic Communications, said in an e-mail that all of the sports teams are now in league play and those schedules are set by the Big East Conference, not Seton Hall. "Therefore, it is simply a coincidence that no game fell on University Day this year," Kuberka said.
However, it's not like Rutgers, also a member of the Big East, would have homecoming on a weekend when there was no football game, even though its schedule would presumably be made by the Big East Conference as well.
Perhaps in the future it would be possible to wait until the fall sports schedules were released to plan University Day, or a request can be made to the Big East Conference to have a home game sometime during the weekend in which University Day is scheduled.
Either way, Pirates fans that might not usually be able to attend games will be able to do so.
This year, we were left with very few options in the way of athletics. There is nothing like a big game to improve Hall spirit, and without one, "Coming Home to the Hall" gives Pirates fans a little less to cheer about.
Caitlin Carroll is a sophomore journalism major from Long Island, N.Y. She can be reached at caitlin.carroll@student.shu.edu.
