Florida Atlantic University men’s basketball team made a 3-0 run in the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship, earning them their first National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) tournament ticket from 2001-2002. A small group of students draped in the university’s colors gathered around the team during their run. They cheered louder than any other fans in the building.
That fall, those same students returned to the stands. This time, student leaders took notice. FAU Student Government Association (SGA) Campus Governor Pablo Paez, Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity brother Will Pearson, and student government leader Michael W. Moore made the group an official club. They coined themselves the “prOWLers.”
The Prowlers and the FAU Ambassadors are the two groups in the Student Alumni Association (SAA). SAA’s main purpose is to remove the gap between FAU Alumni and students to continue long lasting traditions.
To join the Prowlers, there is a $30 fee for the school year. This provides six t-shirts throughout the year, on top of other merchandise. Students have the freedom to be as involved as they want with no meeting requirements.
In the 2022-23 season, the men’s basketball team got into the NCAA tournament for the second time. They marched all the way to the Final Four, yet lost to San Diego State University 72-71.
With financial support that came from members, SAA and SGA, the Prowlers traveled with the team to March Madness again. According to the Prowlers website, FAU earned a student section ranking of 15th in the country for the 2022-23 collegiate basketball season.
“We like to focus on all sports, but football and basketball are our main focus just because their seasons are long. That’s the ones a lot of students go to,” said Chelsea Ishmael, Prowlers’ current social media manager. “We’ve had historic runs with basketball in the past; we definitely want to keep that up even though we have a new coach, new team. We definitely want to keep up the hype for basketball.”
Ishmael wanted a way to be involved with game days and when she found out about the Prowlers she thought, “Oh my God I want to do that.” They host many events prior to games, such as poster board and button-making sessions.
Freshman engineering major, Karlie Saintlot is in her first semester with the Prowlers. Her sister is a senior on the university’s dance team, the Flygirls. After coming to support her sister in her junior year of high school, Saintlot realized that she wanted to be a part of FAU’s traditions.
“Our main focus and what we do for all our members is we promote everyone trying to come up with their own traditions, so like the flag stomp… There’s even some traditions that we start on Saturdays, at game day, that we continue throughout the years,” said Ishmael.
Nadina Sanichar, Prowlers’ vice president said the flag stomp is one of the newer traditions. This is when someone from the Prowlers holds up a large flag displaying FAU’s logo and hits the flag pole down onto the bleachers, ricocheting the noise throughout the venue. It’s strategically done to distract the opposing team, such as when an opponent in basketball is shooting a free throw.
Serving as the vice president for almost two years, Sanichar is responsible for overseeing everything that occurs within events, game setup and working with other organizations.
“We have a lot of chants for different things,” said Saintlot. “My favorite one is probably when the other team is about to score and we hit the bleachers at the same time. I think it’s been going on for a while. I’m still trying to learn the ins and outs.”
The swag surf is one of their longer-lasting traditions according to Sanichar. It uses remixed music from “Swag Surfin’” by F.L.Y. (Fast Life Yungstaz) and Easton. When the song, begins a Prowler holds up an FAU flag to instruct the students to put their hands in the air. As they wave the flag back and forth, the students follow with their arms. The speed slowly increases with the pace of the song.
Sanichar explained that they keep track of the success of chants and that decide if they continue them. In basketball it’s easier for them to gauge how the audience is reacting to the chants and attendance for games.
“You’re closer to everyone, you’re facing them. You can see it and you can actually hear it. It gets so much louder in there,” said Sanichar. “If it’s too hot out, [the fans are] definitely not staying. But it’s also more on the team than us; if they’re not doing well we can’t force people to stay.”
Megan Bruinsma is the Sports Editor for the University Press. For more information regarding this or other stories email her at [email protected] or DM her on Instagram @megan_bruinsma or Twitter (X) @MeganBruinsma.
