From the back of the St. Joe’s student section, a roll of paper stretches across the body of the raucous fans before it reaches the bottom. The snarky digs sprawled across the paper are displayed for the entire arena to see. It is aimed at the opposing school’s basketball team, student section, alumni and cheerleaders. Really, nothing is off limits in this Big 5 tradition.
The group behind the rollouts, the 54th Airborne, was established in 2010 and has spearheaded the Hawk student section ever since. The group is led by its three co-presidents: Kevin Duncan ’20, Billy Legg ’20 and Sam Robinson ’20, who, according to them, haven’t missed an opportunity to assume their position under the basket for a home game in the duration of their time at St. Joe’s. However, Big 5 games heighten their passion.
“It’s incredibly important for the city, first of all, and for the individual schools too,” Legg said. “We don’t always play ranked teams, but when we play Temple or Nova or LaSalle it feels like it’s that type of game. The players prepare for a big rival and we kind of have to do our own preparation and do some digging on details about other teams and the other schools and find something clever to say on these rollouts.”
The Big 5 student sections have been as intertwined into the city’s basketball lore as the Palestra itself. So much so, that Duncan sees it as a game within the game.
“It’s a great tradition and it’s a great test to see how creative each student section can be,” Duncan said. “It adds that much more flair to the competition. It’s not just the two teams competing against each other, it’s the student sections competing against each other.”
Despite what their rollouts may say, Robinson insists that there is a certain camaraderie between the student sections. At the end of the day, it’s all in good fun.
“Going back and forth with other student sections is fun,” Robinson said. “At the end of the day, our relationships with the other student sections are all positive. We all have the same goals, we want to cheer on our team and watch them compete. That’s what we’re supposed to do, we want to make our home court a little intimidating for the opposing team but there is that mutual respect for those other schools.”
The banter hasn’t been confined to the court this year, however. Temple University’s student fan Twitter page, The Cherry Crusade, @cherrycrusade, tweeted out a flier for a “Hawk Funeral” on Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Liacouras Center. Perhaps uncoincidentally, the Hawks are scheduled to take on Temple that day.
To this, the 54th Airborne, @54thAirborne, responded on Twitter, “10/10 for originality….we have NEVER seen @cherrycrusade do this before. @TempleUniv: a VERY creative school! I bet they’ll have totally original rollouts this year too!”
Last season, before the Owls came to Hawk Hill, the members of the 54th Airborne were up until 3 a.m. the night before the game, making sure their rollouts were done to perfection according to Legg. One of the products of that late night was a rollout reading “Fran Dunphy = Big 5 legend” to which the Big 5 hall of famer penned a thank you note to the St. Joe’s student section in response.
“We’re always going to take the time to make sure we do it right because that’s just how important these Big 5 traditions are to us,” Legg said.
For the 54th Airborne, they see this year as especially important to enforce their presence and show support at Michael J. Hagan Arena ’85.
“We really need to get behind them and this is sort of a transition period,” Legg said. “If we as students don’t show our support now, this transition isn’t going to work out. If students show out for that, that’s what’s going to make St. Joe’s basketball successful going forward.”
Robinson, Duncan and Legg said they have been working closely with the St. Joe’s sports marketing department to make their goal become a reality.
“Always the number one goal is to grow the program and really get the student body involved and create those loyal St. Joe’s fans,” Robinson said. “We see it as the more the merrier. The more people that are there yelling, having a good time, supporting our school, it makes Hagan [Arena] an even friendlier place, and creates that sense of community and unity in the student population, and we can do that through these basketball games.”
Robinson also said that they have big plans moving forward, but couldn’t elaborate just yet on what those plans were.
“We definitely have some big things that we plan on rolling out midway through this year and into next year that could surprise some people,” Robinson said.
