Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Grand Canyon University sophomore Shianne Sai and her friends zipped over to the Quad at midnight Sunday, hoping to be the first in line for tonight's Midnight Madness.
The raucous, ultra-spirited, late-night pep rally kicks off the basketball season – and this season is a big one, since GCU will make its Mountain West Conference debut.
But the group of eight had to settle for the seventh spot in line. Other students already had beat them to the punch with tents, air mattresses and other means of short-term survival at the glamp-a-thon known as Camp Elliott.
The dayslong campout was named after Daniel Elliott, the first student to pitch his tent for Midnight Madness in 2015. Elliott’s friends joined him in his next tent-pitching excursion, and a tradition blossomed.
“Basketball season is the best, for sure,” said Sai, who wasn’t discouraged as she and Alix Egan rested in the shade Thursday morning in the southwest corner of the Quad, closest to the entrance of Global Credit Union Arena, where the men’s and women’s basketball teams will conduct their first formal event as Midnight Madness launches, with doors to the arena opening around 10:45 p.m.
Dozens of tents lined the perimeter of the Quad on Thursday morning, though many students arrived as early as Sai did in hopes of getting the best seats.
“Before I came to GCU, I was not a huge fan of basketball,” Egan said. “But it grew on me, seeing how good our student section was, and our Havocs leaders leading them.”
Havocs President Evan McKee said the Havocs are ecstatic about the Lopes’ move to the Mountain West Conference, believing it will enhance more than just GCU athletics.
“We feel a lot of momentum from the students this year, as evidenced by the fact that for night one of Camp Elliott before Midnight Madness this year, we had five times as many groups check-in and stay the night as we did last year,” McKee said.
Sai and Egan became Havoc members during their freshman year after seeing the enthusiasm displayed by Havocs leaders.
A television set kept the group occupied, mostly with sports programming, though a Disney movie was thrown into the mix to break up the repetitiveness of so much sports.
Freshman Ja’lyn Deichert, a sports and entertainment management major from Colorado, learned of the Camp Elliott/Midnight Madness tradition from a cousin who attended GCU and encouraged her to participate.
Deichert, who shared a Styrofoam container of bacon and eggs with `A`ali`ikumakani Valle, a mechanical engineering student from Maui, said, “After we got here, we went to a volleyball game and one of the Havocs gave us information about Camp Elliott." And that's all it took. "We were on it."
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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