JANELLE STRAWSBURG
Staff Writer
It’s 7 a.m. in Malibu. The sun’s gentle rays are beginning to sparkle on the waves softly rolling in on the golden sands of Surfrider. Suddenly the calm is broken with the pounding feet and crazy yells of dozens of orange-clad students rushing into the morning ocean ringing in a new year of Pepperdine Riptide with the ceremonial Riptide Rush. Leading the enthusiastic crowd were Raine Mitchell and Kristi Koon, junior co-presidents of Riptide, the Waves’ student spirit group.
Handed the reigns of leadership for Riptide, Mitchell and Koon are seeking to bring Pepperdine’s student spirit group to new heights in 2006.
“It is huge for our school to have Riptide,” Mitchell said. “We need more school spirit and we need to make up for our small size as a university.”
Touted as small with no fans or school pride, Pepperdine’s Riptide faces tough opposition in their hopes of becoming as legendary as Duke’s Cameron Crazies. Mitchell, however, has faith in Riptide’s capability to succeed in organizing fan involvement at every Wave match.
“We want people to support our teams,” she said. “It has been a struggle, but we want to make it happen. We have a lot of great teams that no one ever comes out to cheer for — tennis, women’s basketball and volleyball. Our question is how are we going to get people to come to these games?”
Tiff Wells, a junior Riptide member, also feels frustrated about the lack of student involvement with Pepperdine athletics, especially attendance at games.
“More students need to join Riptide and the ones who are in it actually need to come to the games,” Wells said. “Like at the men’s basketball exhibition game last week, the Riptide fans were actually sitting down during the game. It was ridiculous.
“First of all students should be cheering for their team. This isn’t a social event to just come talk with your friends. So don’t sit down; stand and cheer. And second, don’t be a bandwagon fan and only come to cheer when we are playing a ranked team.”
Mitchell and Koon have many ideas to help bolster the tradition filled Riptide.
“We have a lot of new ideas for this year’s Riptide,” Mitchell said. “First, we want more people at the games. We want specific barbeques between athletes and the Riptiders. We are also getting better prizes for games to give out at games.”
With one successful event, the Riptide Rush, under their belt, the Riptide faithful’s next big target is Pepperdine Homecoming in February. With more than 500 members in its midst, Riptide is hoping to make quite the impression on both Pepperdine teams and its rivals.
“We are super excited for homecoming,” Mitchell said. “We’re going to cause such a ruckus. We do have a lot of people who are crazy at the games — they wear orange afros, jumpsuits, and the more exciting the event, and the bigger the rivalry, the more people come out, so homecoming should be huge.”
11-09-2006
