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KC Wizards to hold College Night

By Justin Leverett

Friday, August 28, 2009

Tomorrow night, the Kansas City Wizards will bus students to a 7:30 p.m. soccer game against Real Salt Lake, as part of an event called College Night. Besides transportation to and from the game, a $20 ticket will include a snack and a drink.

Emily Hanover, account executive for the KC Wizards, first organized College Night last year and collaborated with the greek community to do it again this year. Although most students attend the event with members of their greek houses, Hanover said anyone was welcome. She said her goal was to help students get to know each other and to bridge the gap between Lawrence and Kansas City.

“We want to get the attention of younger people,” she said. “And not just KU students, but people in Lawrence as well.”

The game will be in Community America Ballpark where the Wizards are holding games until owners complete an overhaul of Arrowhead Stadium. Construction on the stadium has met with delays, meaning the Wizards must share use of the ballpark with the Kansas City T-Bones minor league baseball team.

Alex Schriner, Lawrence sophomore, attended the event last year with her sorority Alpha Chi Omega. She said that the crowded stadium made the game more fun.

“We were shoulder to shoulder in the stands,” she said. “I’m sure we were pretty rowdy, but it’s a soccer game. You gotta get rowdy.”

She and her friends met with members of fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon before boarding buses provided by the Wizards. Rachel Toby, Overland Park junior and social chair for Alpha Chi Omega, attended last year’s College Night.

Toby said that a lot went wrong at last year’s College Night, but that the problems resulted in stronger friendships between Alpha Chi Omega and Sigma Phi Epsilon.

“There were supposed to be two buses but there was only one, and neither the driver nor us knew where we were going. In the end, though, it was a lot of fun,” Toby said.

Later that year, the two houses were partners in planning homecoming events.

Drew Saylor, Topeka senior, also attended the event last year with fellow members of his fraternity Beta Theta Pi. He said the Wizards game was a new experience for him.

“I’d never been to an MLS game before,” he said. “I was surprised at how upbeat the game was.”

This year Toby is one of the event planners. She said when she mentioned to sorority members that they could do the event again this year, they reacted with excitement.

“They jumped on the offer,” she said.

Buses will leave from the Lied Center at 5:30 p.m., but most of the houses will meet and leave from the fraternity houses.

Comments

KC Wizards to hold College Night

The Wizards left Arrowhead for good before last year. It has nothing to do with renovations, and there are no plans to play there in the future. Construction of their proposed soccer specific stadium, to be built on the site of the old Bannister Mall, has been delayed because of a lack of signed tenants in the business park that would surround it.

KC Wizards to hold College Night

Wow, can you guys do some fact checking? Christ.

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