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Rutgers is a massive university. Spread across multiple locations statewide, packed with residential buildings, classrooms, and thousands of students constantly moving from one obligation to the next, it can sometimes feel less like one unified school and more like multitudes of different student experiences existing side by side. Even the New Brunswick campus alone is spread out and diverse enough to feel like a multitude of experiences all at once, rather than a collective student experience shared by the majority of the student body.
For many students, campus life is difficult to fully connect with. Many commuters leave immediately after class to drive back home. Others spend more time at internships or part-time jobs than they do in student activities. Even students living on campus can easily fall into routines where they stay within their own circles, majors, or organizations. Although there is nothing wrong with that, many feel disassociated with the broader university.
But on game days, something changes. From the most social corners of fraternity and sorority houses to the most reserved students who just want a slice of the campus experience, students from all backgrounds and walks of life fill the stadiums to catch their Scarlet Knights in action.
The student section fills with energy hours before kickoff at SHI Stadium or tip-off at Jersey Mike’s Arena. The marching band echoes across campus before football Saturdays, performing walkthroughs with a report time in the early Saturday hours for a noon kickoff. Passionate fans travel to Piscataway from around the state, tailgate for hours, and fill the crisp fall air with chatter as anticipation for the game builds and builds.
Students who may never speak to each other otherwise suddenly celebrate together after a touchdown or groan collectively after a missed shot inside Jersey Mike’s Arena. For a few hours, Rutgers and the state of New Jersey feel fully connected behind the university’s beloved sports teams.
Athletics at Rutgers are not just about wins and losses. They create one of the university’s strongest senses of shared identity. For students who are not as involved with campus life and the busy social scene, and even for those who are, the Rutgers experience is simply incomplete without the experience of Big Ten gamedays.
Beyond the countless students who enjoy games as spectators, Rutgers sports also bring together entire communities of students working behind the scenes to create the atmosphere surrounding game day.
Student broadcasters and journalists spend much of their free time broadcasting or covering games, producing events, or participating in sports talk shows over the air. Student interns run social media accounts, produce content, and help to run the giant production of Rutgers Athletics from behind-the-scenes. For many students who aspire to work in the sports industry one day, their journey begins at sporting events around campus.
Members of the marching band, cheer team, and dance team spend countless hours preparing performances that become part of the experience fans remember most. On gamedays, they perform during breaks, TV timeouts, and deliver legendary performances that entertain the crowds in a way that sometimes the teams cannot even do.
For commuter students especially, sports can provide an entry point into the university community. A football game on Saturdays, a packed basketball student section, or even conversations about Rutgers athletics can create moments of belonging at a school where it is otherwise easy to feel disconnected.
My path towards writing for On The Banks began through these very experiences. As someone who commuted for my entire tenure as a Rutgers student, being involved in the marching band opened my eyes to the magic of Scarlet Knights sports and collegiate sports more broadly.
Seeing the football team up close, as much as they struggled, made me fall in love with the team early on. From someone who hardly paid attention to Rutgers sports before attending, I went from a novice to an “expert” in just a few short years. It was what allowed me to connect with students who walked very different lives than I did.
As someone who is naturally introverted, following Rutgers sports allowed me to connect with students who lived on campus and those who came from different backgrounds than I did. Rutgers sports was the great unifier that made me feel connected to the university, rather than just being another number or name that attended classes and got a degree.
Shortly after, I joined the Rutgers radio station, WRSU Sports, where my passion grew further. I wanted to broadcast football and basketball games and chase my dream of becoming a play-by-play announcer, and I achieved that to an extent, putting on the headset for several important games as a play-by-play and color broadcaster. In addition, I was a regular on the “WRSU Crew,” talking Rutgers and professional sports weekly, and assisted with productions, pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage for multiple sports.
But in both band and radio, my fondest experiences came from the friends I made, the conversations we had, and the gamedays I got to experience. It opened up my social world, allowed me to fully belong on campus, and gave me the college experience I otherwise would not have had as a commuting student who left after classes.
My love for the Scarlet Knights took its final form as I neared graduation, when I applied to write for On The Banks. As someone who wanted a place within sports journalism and writing in particular, it was the perfect way to share and spread my knowledge with the readers and fans who live and breathe Rutgers sports as much as I do.
As a proud Rutgers alumnus, I always enjoy returning to campus for games, and it was an honor and a blessing to be able to cover football and women’s basketball from the stands and even the press box this past season. It was a return to where it all started for me as a young college kid discovering the magic of Rutgers football Saturdays while playing keyboard and drums on the front sideline and stands.
In many ways, Rutgers athletics help bridge the gaps that naturally exist at such a large institution. Different campuses, backgrounds, majors, and lifestyles temporarily fade into the background when thousands of students gather wearing the same colors and reacting to the same moments together.
The impact of that community extends beyond the final score.
It lives in the friendships built through student media organizations covering games late into the night. It lives in the excitement of first-year students experiencing their first blackout football game. It lives in exhausted band members packing equipment after midnight and the raucous student section that stays until the final whistle.
For many students, these experiences become some of the moments that truly make Rutgers feel like home.
As fans slowly leave stadiums and arenas after games, students begin heading back to different campuses, apartments, buses, and parts of the state. The routines of everyday life return quickly. But for a few hours, sports create something increasingly rare on a large college campus: a shared experience capable of bringing thousands of different people together.
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