On Wednesday night, over 300 guests attended the third annual Longwood Hearts Basketball game. Music played throughout the Jerome Kersey Court in Willett Hall during the entire event as students danced in the stands cheering on the two teams. Students anticipated the different prize giveaways, including Chance The Rapper tickets and numerous gift cards to Sweet Frog, Sheetz and other small local businesses.
This year’s game saw a significant increase in prize giveaways. Sophomore resident assistant (RA) Sarah Kasko focused a majority of her time reaching out to the community for prize giveaways with three other people.
“We went out to local businesses and I emailed over a 100 organizations on Longwood’s campus through Lancer Link, and with that I got about 35 prizes to be able to give away,” said Kasko.
During the game, fans listened to heart health facts while the staff and faculty faced the students in 15 minute halves. There were mini games going on throughout the event, which allowed the fans to be involved in the game even if they were not playing.
The team of staff and professors were made up of multiple Aramark employees as well as several professors. Biology professor Dr. Franssen, communication studies professor Dr. Stouffer, campus recreation operations manager Daniel Wooten, health and physical education professor Dr. Mucedola and director of marketing and fan engagement Steve “Lancer Pants” Robertson were just some of the players that made up the team of professors and staff.
The students won the game for the third year in a row. Junior Casey Ripp, senior Zachary Lane, junior Praise Nyambiya and freshman Rico Pena are a few of the players on the student team.
According to junior RA Kate Bridges, the “systematic planning” for this event started in January. The RAs dedicated over an hour and a half a week to the planning for Longwood Hearts Basketball and were pleased with the turnout. The attendees increased from 200 to about 315 fans over the past three events.
Senior RA Amanda Chappell was a part of the planning process for all three years. “I think my favorite part of the event was when I finally just sat down and started watching the game because at first, I was running around trying to make sure everything was okay,” said Chappell.
According to Chappell, it was really exciting to watch the faculty and staff interact with the students during the game, she described the atmosphere as intense.
