My Life as a Dirty Bird

For my first year at FGCU, I was really nervous coming because I felt like a freshman all over again. When I heard of the Dirty Birds fan group, I was really interested. So I heard about an event called "Eagle Revolution" and decided to go.

Before going, I wanted to try and meet a few of the athletes and first one I met was Filip Cvjeticanin, the last active member of the original Dunk City. At first I was a little nervous to speak to him and was afraid I was going to say something stupid, but when I approached him, I introduced myself and he turned out to be really friendly and we had a good conversation.

The best part was I lived close by the Alico Arena. When I got there, I got my Dirty Bird gear and got a lot of good stuff. At the end of the event, I spoke to some of the other athletes, including women's basketball player Whitney Knight and had a little humor with her. When she asked her how the women's basketball team rotates and she told me they play a guard rotation and I asked her "How tall are you?" and she said 6'3" and plays guard. I literally pulled a Steve Harvey moment where I compared her height to mine. I said to Knight "You are not a guard, you're a forward... What is wrong with this picture? How are you a guard and 6-3? This is nuts."we had a good laugh about it afterwards

The first athletic event I went to was the women's soccer game vs Ole Miss in which we tied 0-0. For my first athletic event, it was really amazing. The first win came from the women's soccer team again as they played Dayton and won 1-0, and that's when I met Tabby Tindell, the player who scored the only goal. During an autograph session, I told her that she was now my favorite player and she loved it. One of the best memories as a Dirty Bird in the fall was the women's soccer team wining the A-Sun Conference Tournament finals to go to the NCAA National Women's Soccer tournament.


When volleyball season started, I was excited to see the team play and even got to wave the Dirty Bird flag in a 3-0 victory over New Orleans for the home and season opener. I even got some pics with the volleyball players like Leigh Pudwill, Ella Kazarian,Vanessa Benke and Amanda Carroll.

During my time as a Dirty Bird, I knew there were going to be some personally, intense obstacles I would come face-to-face with. My first one was with FAU. Maja Ristic, a volleyball player I knew from my junior college was coming to play FGCU in volleyball and I was really worried about it; I was stuck.

There was one option I had to make and that was talk to Billie Timmons, a coach I know that Maja played for. I explained the situation and asked her what should I do about it. She understood what I was going through. She said to "Well it is tough call. Especially when you both have two alma matters... I think ultimately I would represent my current school, and cheer but wouldn't go out of my way to do it in a disrespectful way towards Maja or FAU." She said I can cheer for Maja, but keep low on it. In the end, FAU beat FGCU 3-1 and although we lost, seeing Maja at the game, and getting a pic with her afterwards, is well worth it. That was just the beginning of my personal fixes.

Later going into conference, UNF volleyball was playing, and Tessa Alyman, another player I knew from junior college, played for University of North Florida (UNF). When she came down to play FGCU, she saw me and we said hello, but in a quiet manner. At the end of the final match point, I mouthed to her saying "I love you" as a way saying that I still cared about her, even if we went to rival schools.

There were two situations where we were playing USF in women's tennis and baseball and once again, I knew someone who played for SCF and played for USF. Chloe Murphy played for women's tennis team, but FGCU played over there and the baseball team played us, but Ryan Valdes was inactive due to injury, so I dodged two bullets on that.

When basketball season was still going on, the FGCU men's basketball team played Eckerd College, and NCAA D2 team, and Brian Cobb, a former SCF basketball player I know, played for them and gave us a run for our money, but we still won. I remember going to my first FGCU men's basketball game I attended against Youngstown State in a victory. That was at the true prime of me from being a rookie to earning veteran status.

My first women's basketball game was against Harvard in a victorious manner as well, and I got to witness Knight play along with other players like Taylor Grandijan, Kaneisha Atwater and then player Stephanie Haas.

When the spring semester hit, softball season went underway. Seeing that back at SCF, I say one two syllable word: "UH-OH". I tested it out at the first game, but it wasn't working very well. When we had the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) come play, they played the theme from "Space Jam" and it gave me an idea of a new cheer. I gave the experiment a shot and after the first run we scored, we won the game. Since that game, I still say to that "FGCU LETS GET HYPE WHOOP THERE IT IS!!!" Literally, after the games, they did the cheer with me. During the opening of conference, the softball did a video via Instagram of my cheer and dedicated it to me.

Around the time of baseball season, one of the players, Richie Garcia, had a catchy walkup song called "Bailar" by Deorro ft Elvis Crespo. When it got to a certain part of the verse in the song, I started clapping to the rhythm and Dirty Birds and other spectators started clapping along with me.

I love being a Dirty Bird and show my constant support for all the athletes and if I didn't meet veterans like Jacob Barrett, Ben Jaap and Chance Fernandez, I would be an outcast with nothing to do and no one to cheer for.

I'm grateful to be a a part of a great fan base for all the sports and make posters for athletes on their birthday and showing the whole team because I love to make them feel good just as much as they win to make us feel good. It's a great thing to be a Dirty Bird.