Anybody know who the main "Boom Squad" students are?

[BigTime]

I would like to give them some bits of wisdom that I learned from doing the organized student section back during the Blake Griffin days.

I anybody knows them then please PM me and I will get in touch with them.

Thanks

BT

 

[thewez]

I know one of them, the Chicken, is gone now, graduated. The banana is Evan Troka, and his plan last year was to still be around in grad school

 

[BigTime]

I know one of them, the Chicken, is gone now, graduated. The banana is Evan Troka, and his plan last year was to still be around in grad school

Any chance you could get me in touch with him? If you PM me then I can give you my info.

Thanks

BT

 

[thewez]

I got in to contact with them last year through twitter. I DM'd the OU Boom Squad account. Sorry I don't have any other contact info

 

[BigTime]

I reached out to one member last week but have not heard back. Anybody else know a way to get in contact with them. Just want to share some goods and bads from my time in the student section and offer my support!

 

[AdaSooner]

I'll add my two cents for whatever it's worth. The current Boom Squad could benefit from BT's experience. He was front and center in the effort to revive student participation at OU BB games several years ago. No one I know worked harder or accomplished more.

There are others on this board who were active back then, or who picked up where he left off. But, BigTime (the "Red Wig") was a leader in getting OU students involved in supporting the team again. If there are any Boom Squad members out there, you need to contact this guy!

 

[BigTime]

I'll add my two cents for whatever it's worth. The current Boom Squad could benefit from BT's experience. He was front and center in the effort to revive student participation at OU BB games several years ago. No one I know worked harder or accomplished more.

There are others on this board who were active back then, or who picked up where he left off. But, BigTime (the "Red Wig") was a leader in getting OU students involved in supporting the team again. If there are any Boom Squad members out there, you need to contact this guy!

Thanks Ada. Figured it would be worthwhile to share what worked and what didn't.

In case they are the shy types and lurk:

- The basketball office (Renee Forney) is really helpful getting you supplies and coordinating things. I imagine that with Coach Kruger at the helm that has increased even more but she was always very helpful to me (ex let us put our costumes and gear in the basketball office so that we didn't have to lug it all through the security gestapo).

- I found the students really enjoyed the balloons that we would blow up during before the game. We would give them out at halftime since the other team is shooting FTs into the SS during the second half. We would usually inflate around 200-300 of them. The basketball office will buy them for you. It was pretty fun to throw them to the crowd from the top of the lower level.

- We made up game sheets that had factoids about the team, any spirit stuff that we tried to accomplish (really wanted to get the crowd to do the OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU on the tip off with a finger in the air ala football but I'm not sure that caught on), and any future game info. We did a smack sheet for the rivalry games. It is best to bring those in through the basketball offices

- I also thought that many of the students liked the old tradition from the 80s of throwing shredded paper up in the air after the first basket. We got a little flack from the cleaning crew/marketing due to the mess but I bet you could pull it off for big games.

- I thought that putting up fliers around campus inviting students to come to games/chalking the campus for big games was mixed. I think just hitting PolySci, Dale and the Dorm buildings is probably good enough. The chalk was never really that noticeable due to all the chalkings. Using social media may be more effective than anything now.

- I thought that working with the OU Daily for big games to get a headline or half a page (ex Beat Texas) to have the students hold up during the intros was pretty good.

- Didn't have much luck going up into the upper bowl and inviting folks to move down after the first media timeout. We put a lot of work into that with little yield.

- Didn't have much luck trying influence the students from our spot down on the floor to do the chants and heckles. For one, I am not sure they can really hear you as you aren't facing them. I liked it that the core of the Boom Squad actually sat up in the student section. I think you will get better results. We isolated ourselves from the majority of the section and I think some of them didn't really like us because of that.

- Had a lot of success getting football players to help fire up the crowd. Gerald McCoy was the best we ever had. The students will respond very well to that. If you could get a guy like Joe Mixon to come and get loud then it will work.

There is a lot more but my fingers hurt. If anyone is a part of the group and wants to talk more about it then please DM me.

BT