It's Madness!

I visited Mount Saint Mary College (MSMC) tonight for their pep rally gathering. The idea of this was to have a "midnight madness" atmosphere. The intention was in the right place. However you have to crawl before you can walk.

The reality was that the bleachers, which were open on just one side of the gym, weren't even half full. I think we all hoped for a slightly better crowd, but none of us were shocked or disheartened.

The entertainment was headed up by the folks from K-104 (part of the Pamal family, including Hudson Valley Talk Radio) and Rick Zolzer served as the MC. Yes, that Rick Zolzer, as in "The Zolz", the PA announcer for the Renegades, Nets, and Army.

Of course, I couldn't help but laugh when I noticed that Zolz was wearing an Army jacket. Couldn't MSMC have gotten him some garb for the evening?

I've known Zolz for eight years now, but we'd never really spoken much until tonight. He was nice enough to ask me to address the crowd, and so I did. I told them about the excitement of bringing The Mount to the radio (and internet), and how it will sound great on the airwaves if "The Kap" (the Kaplan Center) is full. I said my peace, and was gone within two minutes.

The teams did their thing (layup drills, games with the fans, etc), and somebody hit a half court shot to win a TV. There was free food, and a K-104 DJ stuck around to spin tunes. It had a nice feeling.

Now we need the people to come out.

There is much work to be done at MSMC. While eating dinner, men's coach Ryan Kadlubowski (you better bet I'm going to call him "The Big Lebowski" or "The Dude") came over and chatted with me. We were shooting the bull when he told me that the bus for Stony Brook is leaving at 2:00 on Monday...I had been told that it was leaving at 3:30. So yeah, we need to work on our communication.

This won't be built in a day. But we've got the right people in place to start making it happen.