The era of “Otter’s Army” T-shirts is over. The era of “Fort Charlie” has begun.
This weekend, the Hillsdale College Athletics marketing team will introduce “Fort Charlie,” the new name for the student section at all college sporting events.
“Charlie is the name of our mascot, and ‘fort’ gives it a theme of discipline and togetherness as a team,” said Tiffany Treppa, the athletics marketing and game day experience manager.
The athletics marketing team and sports interns worked together to develop Fort Charlie, Treppa said.
The interns, students who took the organization and administration of sports class with Associate Athletic Director Nikki Walbright last fall, focused on reimagining the new student section and creating guidelines and goals for it, Treppa said. The marketing team designed Fort Charlie T-shirts to distribute to the entire student body.
“The vision of Fort Charlie is to create a place where all students can come together and root for the Chargers in an environment that all students want to be a part of,” Treppa said.
She said the goal is to unite the student body as Chargers, promoting brand identity and healing the currently fragmented relationship between students and athletes on campus.
“We want to have the best student section in the G-MAC, and we believe we can accomplish that with an organized effort,” Director of Athletics John Tharp said.
Walbright said the interns spent nearly the entire semester forming the idea and working on the details of Fort Charlie to make it a great addition to campus.
“The project ended with a formal presentation to a panel of campus administrators,” Walbright said. “It was a fun project for them to work on and required a lot of research on past and current student populations to help steer what they wanted Fort Charlie to look like.”
Walbright said she advised the interns to be as creative as possible while challenging them to fill in missing ideas or reminding them of the reality of how Fort Charlie needs to work.
“Ultimately, the group laid a fantastic foundation for our department to get Fort Charlie started,” Walbright said. “We are hopeful it can add excitement and spirit to our Charger home events as well as start new standing traditions for the student population.”
Senior Jadon Camero and junior Nathan Rastovac, both Simpson Dorm head resident assistants, said their dorm is excited to bring the energy to home games.
“Usually Simpson makes up 99% of the student section at games, so if we can add more people to that and grow the Charger identity, the student section will be unbelievable,” Camero said.
Rastovac said Simpson’s goal is about both camaraderie and strategy.
“Simpson is excited to bring the energy and our loud voices in cheering on the athletes and getting into the opposing team’s heads so all they think of is the student section, not the game,” Rastovac said. “We hope the other dorms will join Simpson in making sports student sections great again.”
The Charger football team will be playing in its season-opening game at home against the University of Indianapolis Greyhounds on Sept. 7 at 6 p.m. The game will include Hillsdale’s annual Victory Day event for community members with special needs, as well as a firework show after the game.
Fort Charlie is looking for student leaders from various parts of campus who will lead interactive cheers and activities at home games, Treppa said. Contact her at ttreppa@hillsdale.edu.