MURFREESBORO — The
video message inside the MTSU Murphy Center scoreboards read: “MAKE SOME
NOISE!”
The video messages were not really needed as nearly 7,000
students from 12 Murfreesboro City Schools and Campus School kept the Monte
Hale Arena’s noise level at the max during the third Education Day field trip,
this time for the Blue Raiders-Clemson Tigers women’s basketball game.
When the youngsters saw the message, noise levels became
deafening — apparently pushing the Raiders intensity to peak and affecting the
Atlantic Coast Conference Tigers, who committed numerous turnovers and an
off-day shooting as MTSU, 3-2, cruised to a 69-28 victory before 11,307 fans,
second largest in the program’s history.
To view video from the Education Day events, visithttp://youtu.be/TUB3nwjmErw.
Education Day III marks the continuing partnership between
MTSU, which operates Campus School (a Rutherford County School) and the City
Schools. The alliance exposes students — some for the first time — to a college
campus.
Sitting on the very back row of the bleachers on the track
level, Bradie McCarty, 11, a sixth-grade student at Bradley Academy, was fully
intent on “yelling and screaming and losing my voice.”
So were the rest of her peers, who began cheering — and
yelling — before 10 a.m., more than one hour before tipoff, and throughout the
game.
The event featured a science/mathematics “hula hoop” game,
won by Reeves-Rogers Elementary. Overall Creek, Scales, Cason Lane and Campus
School also participated.
“To do it (an activity) in science was fun,” said Jaxyn
Luscinski, a Reeves-Rogers fourth-grader, who scored one of her team’s two
points as players from five teams used a large sling-shot to get the ball to
land inside the hula hoop. “What I learned is that when you push or pull (the
sling), it makes you get from one place to another.”
“They’re excited,” said Reeves-Rogers Principal Laurie
Offutt, whose team — Luscinski, O’mutwali Rulikira, Jaylen Moore, Savanna
Syharath and Kenneth Harper — received five small, MTSU blue basketballs as the
prize, and her school later won the musical chairs. “One more (contest) game
and we sweep.”
Students from all five teams received T-shirts from MTeach,
which produced the educational event and is a secondary
mathematics and science teacher preparation program at MTSU.
MTSU Athletic Marketing’s mascot basketball game was more
like mascot mania or mayhem as various school mascots joined MT’s Lightning in
a short game during halftime when the Blue Raiders led 46-12.
Teriana Covington, 12, of Black Fox, utilized her quickness
to score eight points.
“This was 100 percent fun,” Covington said.
MTSU aerospace assistant professor Nate Callender “walked
over to hang out” with his daughter, Elizabeth, 6, a kindergarten student at
Campus School, while son Ian, a Campus School fifth-grader, got to hang with
his buddies in the rafters.
“It’s a good day,” Elizabeth Callender said. “I’ve been
excited about it.” Brother Ian added that he “would have made the sling shot lower
to the ground” in order to score more points for the hula hoop game.
Nate Waddell, 9, a John Pittard fourth-grader, said the best
part for him “was watching the basketball game.” The Raiders’ Olivia Jones and
her teammates kept the crowd loud throughout the game — MTSU’s third
consecutive Education Day victory.
Cooper Lebo, 10, a Discovery School fourth-grader attending
his third straight year Education Day game, said he “likes watching the
basketball players because they make good, long-range shots. It gets more fun
every year.”
Murfreesboro City Schools Director Linda Gilbert sat through
an early portion of the game with MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee. Eventually,
she ventured to the track level “to walk around and hope everything is going
smoothly — and everybody at MTSU makes it go smoothly.”
“This exemplifies what happens all during the year between
MTSU and Murfreesboro City Schools,” Gilbert added, referring to the Education
Day. “This captures the fun, education and collaboration.”
Erma Siegel,
Hobgood Elementary, Mitchell-Neilson and Northfield were the other City Schools
sending students to the game.
Rutherford County and City Schools combined to bring the
students to the game and return them to their schools with about 50 buses.
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