The Trinity Spirit Organization became a registered student organization on Nov. 10. The organization aims to increase school spirit on campus.
TSO’s constitution states: “The purpose of this organization is to infuse spirit into events and spaces on campus that are spiritless.”
John “J.J.” Jacobs, assistant director for Student Involvement, serves as the advisor for the organization. For the past year TSO has been working towards fostering spirit on campus with the help of University Marketing and Communications, Trinity Athletics and the Faculty and Staff Spirit Committee.
Spirit has steadily been increasing at Trinity, according to Jacobs, through a series of strategic efforts. The first step was for the university to embrace a social media movement by using #TigerPride on posts.
“If you look up #TigerPride and compare it to last year, we are one of the most dominant institutions that use that hashtag. There are a lot of institutions that have tigers as their mascot,” Jacobs said. “But if you #TigerPride, you don’t have to scroll all the way down to find Trinity, you can do one scroll and you’ll find Trinity. I think that’s the goal.”
In addition to promoting the hashtag, TSO works to support the branding of the university within the community.
“It’s been a movement. Once we took the first step of #TigerPride, getting a new spirit logo, doing the student organization, establishing the Faculty and Staff Spirit Committee, changing the logo on outfits, and embracing it, everyone started joining in,” Jacobs said.
The organization also aims to promote campus spirit through tailgates, according to Katherine Devney, sophomore and co-chair of TSO.
“For tailgating we’re out there with spirit items like the thunder sticks and foam paws. We do face painting and maroon hair spray,” Devney said.
During games, Anthony “Scuba” Sanchez rings the Victory Bell when the team scores. Jacobs explained that the Victory Bell was transformed this year.
“It’s the same Victory Bell, but we’ve updated it. Over the summer the O-Team co-captains painted it and added the stencil of the spirit logo and repainted the sides,” Jacobs said.
The Fight Song was also updated this year in hopes to increase spirit on campus.
“University Marketing and Communications and I thought, “˜We have a fight song but it was kind of ragtime 1950s, and it hadn’t been updated since then.’ And so Dr. Brian Bondari over the summer organized and polished it up and created a score for the fight song,” Jacobs said.
The Tiger Stand Band and O-Team practiced the song and rehearsed it over the summer. Jacobs explained that the sound was updated and a few new lyrics were added.
“O-Team learned the fight song and added to shout “˜Tiger Pride’ at the end. And the song was born and recreated,” said Jacobs.
One way that students can raise spirit on campus is by wearing maroon on Fridays, according to Devney.
“Participating in Maroon Friday is a great way to show your spirit. That’s something that I don’t think a lot of people consider as they get ready in the morning. It’s fun and an easy way to unify the campus,” Devney said.
The Maroon Platoon, which began last year, has been working to increase the number of individuals wearing maroon on Fridays.
“It is an opportunity not to reprimand students but to increase spirit and to make sure faculty, staff and students understand that on Fridays we want you to wear maroon. Do your best and if not you’ll get a citation. The good thing about a citation is that you get a 25 percent off discount at the bookstore to get a spirit item,” Jacobs said.
Looking ahead, TSO desires to branch into the arts and theater to raise spirit in those settings. The organization also hopes to continue fostering spirit at athletic events.
“In the future I can imagine TSO helping out with the programs at half time, and there’s talk of buying a giant spirit flag for every time we score someone will run down the field,” Jacobs said.
TSO aims to act as an umbrella organization and work with other groups to raise school spirit. In the future, TSO hopes to work with Tigers for Tigers to create more tiger imagery on campus.
“We don’t see too many tiger stripes on campus.” Devney said. “There’s really only see the mural in Prassel but not too many tiger centric things. So we’re interested in partnering with Tigers for Tigers to have more Tiger spirit on campus.”
