RPI Pep Band (and
Friends) Alumni Newsletter
Volume 3, Issue 1
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This Issue:
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| Well, what can you say about this year's football team. We all knew it was going to be tough if not impossible to match the efforts of the 2003 squad. A 1-2 start led to an inconsistent season which saw RPI bring home only two of the three trophies. Only a late touchdown from Union in the last game of the season kept the Engineers from sweeping the trophy run and heading to yet another ECAC playoff appearance. Now Coach King and his staff will regroup and see if they have the pieces to make another run at the Liberty League title and the automatic playoff birth in the NCAA's. |
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It's Puck Season! Hockey Underway. Will the real Engineers please stand up? I repeat, will the real Engineers please stand up? Despite a rough start to the season in an openning tournament where the men's squad dropped both games, there was hope as the EMC line ranked at the top of the nation in offense with all three players ranking up almost a point per game. On top of that, in what was a penalty filled first semester the Engineer power play was a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately inconsistent play and shaky goaltending left the team with a sub-.500 record at the half for the second time in the last three seasons. However, there was hope going into the second semester. RPI had just won their first one-goal of the season and would start 2005 with two games against a weak Notre Dame squad. RPI took game one 3-1 but lost the second game 2-1. This left the team one game under .500 going into the stretch run of the season. Only one non-conference game against Holy Cross remains between now and the end of February. A 9-1 thrashing by Dartmouth and 3-0 loss to UVM the following weekend would be the Engineer's response to the pressure as they seem destined for a bottom-four slot in the standings. The women's team is an entirely different story. After dropping their first game to D1 Union, the squad went on a rampage, scoring 57 goals for a 10 game winning streak in the first semester. The ladies would face their toughest challenge of the season to start 2005 with a double header against a dominating Manhattanville squad. Manhattanville had knocked RPI out of the playoffs each of the last two seasons. As always, we'll keep you updated on the teams throughout the regular season and the playoffs. |
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| The latest Pep Band Alumni tradition took a step up this year as RPI took on St. Lawrence in ECACHL action. Once again the stage was packed with alums from all generations. A fun, if disappointing, night of hockey was followed by a great party at the home of Conductress Sarah Toner. It was good to see so many alumni mixing with the current band. We'll definitely be holding this event again and making it part of our yearly tradition. | |
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Which leads us to our biggest tradition, FREAKOUT! This year's main event takes place on Feb. 12th against Brown. As always RPI Pep Band Alumni (and Friends) is working to make each year better than the last! We've listened to your feedback, and have some new things planned, in addition to events from last year. Plus, we've made it our goal to get 50 alums at all the events this year, so if you haven't gotten your tickets yet now's the time! To start off, we will again be having our annual Pre-Freakout Breakfast at Latham 76 Diner at 9:00am that day. After which we'll be heading down to West Hall 326 for Pep Band Rehearsal at 10:30am. New this year is an Alumni only Lasagna dinner, graciously being held at the Corbisiero residence in Latham. Dinner will start at 3:30pm and last 'till 5:45pm. After dinner we'll be heading off to the Fieldhouse for the game and potentially some broomball! After the game, alum Brendan Conte will be hosting the Freakout After Party for us at his house on Tibbits Ave. Of course there are other events run by the 'Tute that day as well. At noon, the men's hockey team will be having their annual Hockey Alumni Game at the Fieldhouse which is open to the public.This will be followed by a 3:00pm ECAC D3-East women's match up against St. Michael's. And at 4:30pm, the Alumni House will be holding their Ice House event where they will be honoring members of the '85 championship team. As an added bonus for those Pep Band alums who plan on being on stage during the game, the Fieldhouse has agreed to reserve a block of seats just for us until February 5th at 5:00pm. Tickets cost $8.00ea. and can be purchased by calling the Houston Field House Box Office at (518) 276-6262. They will take Visa or MasterCard charges only and there is a $3 handling fee. You can pick up your tickets at the Houston Field House Will Call Window or if time allows (10 days minimum) the tickets can be mailed. Simply identify yourself as a Pep Band Alum and ask for these special seats. This game will sell out so please get your tickets ASAP. If you haven't already done so, be sure to RSVP no later than Feb. 5th. This is really important so we can plan all of the events and make sure they are a success. |
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Looks like a pretty calm quarter for our members. Only a couple of items to update people on. First off, Joseph Gillman (trumpet, '02) graduated from Georgia Tech in December with a MS in Aerospace Engineering. He hopes to attend the Freakout this year and catch up with some old friends in the band. Also, we got some rare news on a "famous" ex-conductor. Dave Noble '92.5 (the conductor formerly known as Pizzaman) celebrated his 7th wedding anniversary with his lovely and talented wife Valerie, who plays piano, sings, and writes music. They married after spending a year together in music school after Dave quit his job. They live in sunny Pasadena California, close to the end of the Rose Parade route. This year, they celebrated at a national cheerleading competition where Dave's stepdaughters Merrilee and Marguerite (also lovely and talented; they get that from their mother) stunted their way to the finals. At no point did they hold up signs that said "GO FIGHT NIM". Stepson James stayed home with his father and played video games. Family photo from this year's summer vacation extravaganza is here: http://home.earthlink.net/~davenoble/album/vacation2004/family.jpg Dave is also celebrating the one year anniversary of the Mars Exploration Rovers landings. He was "cognizant engineer" for the "System Software" ground software element. Picture with earthbound rover model is here: http://home.earthlink.net/~davenoble/album/mer/rover-and-dave.jpg Dave is still a geek, and his Java-related blog can be found here: http://www.jroller.com/page/dnoble He can be reached at dnoble@fuzzyslippers.com. And finally, Julie Turcotte '02 graduated with a master's degree in nuclear engineering from MIT in August of this year. After a number of months of oh-so-fun unemployment, she recently got a job offer from Massachusetts General Hospital's radiation oncology group in boston, and will be starting a job there as an assistant physicist in the very near future (i.e., within a month). So all you alums in the Boston area feel free to send me an email if you want to get together and reminisce about our fun RPI pep band days! New job, kid, or house? Good news, bad news, whatever. If you want to share it, we'll post it (well, ok, so we have some standards but you get the idea). Help us keep alumni in touch by sharing your life updates. Simply e-mail them to us at pepband@azhrei.net. |
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Welcome to the first edition of Pep Band Stories. We have a couple of different types of stories to share with you this quarter, which we hope you find amusing. This first story comes from Michael Lavagnino: "On a road trip to Union, not all of the oranges got thrown on the ice. With a leftover orange I took up the dare to see if I could get the orange in a tuba. I made it and who knows if they ever removed it!" The second story is something of a classic and comes from Mike (Can Fly) Brown and Eric Lynn. "In early 1995, Eric Lynn and Michael Brown piled into Dave Nangle's van for a trip to Dartmouth and UVM. As poor college students, we were looking for the cheapest lodging possible. Fortunately, Eric Lynn, as a member of the FIJI house at RPI, had made arrangements for the three of us to stay at the FIJI house at Vermont. When we arrived at Vermont after the Dartmouth game, we knocked on the back door of the house and were greeted by a shirtless FIJI brother with his ferret, Osiris, on his shoulder. We mentioned we were from RPI, and that Mad Dog had okayed our stay. Our shirtless host showed us to his room, and we each claimed a couch. As our host was on his way out the door (at least he grabbed a shirt, it was damn cold that night) and back downtown, we decided that we would join him for the rest of the night's revelry. So, downtown we went, for some pool playing and some small amount of libations. We managed to stay down there until about 2 am, when our guide mentioned that most of the eating establishments on the downtown strip were closing, and would be giving away food cheap. The now mostly inebriated FIJI brother insisted that he was going to get gravy fries, and intimated that they were the best thing pretty much since the invention of the wheel. We all managed to also grab some gravy fries after waiting in a very long and cold line, and some really cheap pizza. When we got back to the house, we prepared to settle in for the night. As we were all settling in, our host starts getting undressed in front of us. As he unzips his pants, he looks around for a minute, and then asked the room, "Where's my critter?" Not knowing whether he was talking about Osiris or something we didn't want to know about, we mostly brushed off his question and continued getting ready for bed. After a cursory search for his critter, our host finished getting ready for bed and crawled into his loft. We settled down for sleep, but our host decided that he really needed to have a conversation with his roommate. His roommate was obviously trying to brush him off, answering every question shortly or ignoring it entirely. After about 15 minutes of questioning, he finally quieted down, and we all relaxed. A short time later, we heard a quick tearing sound come from the sober bed. Hmmm, apparently we also have a female visitor in the room as well. Aha! That's why the roommate wanted some quiet time. Unfortunately, about this time, the questioning started again, this time more incessantly. After another 15 minutes of this, the roommate decided that whatever he had planned with his female friend was not going to happen this evening, so it was just time to go to bed. At this point, our guide was asked to turn off his light so they could sleep. The conversation went something like this: Host:
I don't have my light on. At this point, the argument in the loft has our interest. But the best was yet to come. Some more arguing ensued, but the drunk boy did finally turn off his light. By now, though, our host's feelings are hurt, and he goes on a diatribe about how his roommate doesn't appreciate him, doesn't like him, blah, blah, blah. His roommate tries to console him some, but mainly wants to go to sleep. After about 5 minutes of whining, the drunk boy, hoping to prove his worth to his roommate, states "You know, without you, your life has no meaning". At this point, it takes all of our self control to not fall off the couches laughing. The roommate, at this point, realizes that arguing is pointless, and manages to quickly end the conversation and goes to sleep. We also, despite still laughing at what we just witnessed, fell asleep. The next day brought the return of our host's critter, some pool playing at the FIJI house, and general wandering of Burlington, as Pep Banders are wont to do, before the Vermont game. During the game, unfortunately an RPI loss, we maintained high spirits, making fun of their incessant cowbell cheers and chanting "What the hell is a Catamount?" when we could. We headed back to RPI after the game, sidetracked only for a short time for a photo op at the Burlington locale, "What Ale's You". And now we know, that without ourselves, our lives have no meaning." Thanks to Mike and Mike and Eric for sharing their stories. If you've got a favorite story or memory from your time with the Pep Band you'd like to share, please e-mail us at pepband@azhrei.net and we'll include it in the next edition of the Pep Band Alumni Newsletter.
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Hello once again. We
hope that this new year finds you well. The band has been quite
busy over the past three months with the end of the football season
and the start of hockey, and it only gets busier as the hockey season
approaches the long stretch into the post-season. In addition to playing at this semester's home games, the band will be making two trips to perform at away games. Those trips will be at Clarkson/St. Lawrence on Jan. 21-22 and at UVM on Jan. 28, so if you live near either of these locations buy your tickets now to see the band perform without needing to make the trek to Troy. In closing, we'd like to wish you all the best of luck in the new year and to once again say that we are greatly looking forward to meeting you at Freakout. -The Managers |
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Wow, that's a lot of stuff. Some quick points and a recap:
Next issue: End of season recaps, Pub Night 3, more features, maybe some surprises, and Clarkson Still SUCKS! |
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