You don't start any traditions without student section buy-in, they are the heart of a football stadium. The students aren't going to engage with Boomer rock from the 60s-80s.
The easiest answer is that we already have a tradition that all of the fans know and participate in (William Tell Overture timeout). Just duplicate it on the football field. Nothing wrong with bringing 55k to their feet, clapping in unison, singing the fight song together.
If you want a song, Swag Surfin is what you should do. They played it at the Nebraska game I was at this year, but in typical IU athletic department fashion, the execution was so horrendous that it fell on its face.
You can't just play a song and expect people to start singing. You set this up ahead of time. Post a short video on socials saying "end of 3rd quarter, Purdue game", have the song "Swag Surfin" playing in the background, and people will get the message. Or do literally any communication to the students as they're walking into the game.
During the game, operations needs to do their part and lead into it. There needs to be a hype video (or just do the William Tell Overture timeout), giving the students a signal that "oh we're going to do Swag Surfin now", then when the song starts blasting, you need to re-enforce the positive behavior by putting the students who are surfing on the video board.
Have people videotape the students doing it, share it on socials, and the tradition stays.
Auburn does it perfectly. They play a hype video for ~2 minutes, then pan to the students who are surfing. The band does it, the cheerleaders do it, the lead in is perfect.
The easiest answer is that we already have a tradition that all of the fans know and participate in (William Tell Overture timeout). Just duplicate it on the football field. Nothing wrong with bringing 55k to their feet, clapping in unison, singing the fight song together.
If you want a song, Swag Surfin is what you should do. They played it at the Nebraska game I was at this year, but in typical IU athletic department fashion, the execution was so horrendous that it fell on its face.
You can't just play a song and expect people to start singing. You set this up ahead of time. Post a short video on socials saying "end of 3rd quarter, Purdue game", have the song "Swag Surfin" playing in the background, and people will get the message. Or do literally any communication to the students as they're walking into the game.
During the game, operations needs to do their part and lead into it. There needs to be a hype video (or just do the William Tell Overture timeout), giving the students a signal that "oh we're going to do Swag Surfin now", then when the song starts blasting, you need to re-enforce the positive behavior by putting the students who are surfing on the video board.
Have people videotape the students doing it, share it on socials, and the tradition stays.
Auburn does it perfectly. They play a hype video for ~2 minutes, then pan to the students who are surfing. The band does it, the cheerleaders do it, the lead in is perfect.
