More than 70 students greeted the seven teams that will lead the return of the university's intercollegiate athletics program this year at the second-ever Green and White Night last Thursday. Less than 24 hours before the school's cross-country teams were to compete in their first meet, Cassidy was buzzing.
"I came in excited, and I left even more excited," said Cassidy.
Cassidy said the pep rally-like event inspired confidence in the 70 student-athletes he introduced, who are responsible for leading the return of a university athletics program that folded in 1989.
"I think they came here tonight and saw that the students support them," Cassidy said. "The student body is really behind this initiative of student athletics.
"To hear them cheer real loud when they came on the floor I think only strengthened the fact that ‘Wow, I made the right decision to come to Roosevelt, this is gonna be a fantastic year,'" I'm so proud of our students for coming out and supporting our student-athletes today."
Tessa Garner, a freshman basketball player from Fort Wayne, Ind., was surprised by the turnout. "I thought more people showed up than I expected, and they seemed excited about it," she said.
Men and women's tennis, men's basketball, and men's baseball teams will also begin this year. Four more teams will follow in coming years.
Some students were already looking forward to going to the first "home" basketball game, a Nov. 3 women's game at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Keating Center against Trinity College.
"Definitely, and dressed like this," said sophomore Allegra Sorley, who donned green shorts, a Roosevelt Lakers shirt and a neon green headband.
SPEED member Chris Cortez, who put the night together with Cassidy, liked that students got the chance to meet all the athletes at once instead of just passing by one or two on campus.
"It was a good way to intertwine that group [of athletes and students] to get to know what's new, what's going on at Roosevelt," he said.
This was just one step Cassidy said he would take to promote and market his program toward the student body.
"We're going to market it like you would a minor league baseball team, or small college program," Cassidy said. "We're going to make sure everyone knows where the game is, how to get there. We're going to do some fun promotions during the game, some incentives to come out, win some fabulous prizes for coming out to the game.
Cassidy had one major point for everything. "We want to make it a great experience for our students," he said.
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