According to an announcement from the Samford Department of Athletics and Student Affairs Division, the 2024 Step Sing Banners were hung in the Pete Hanna Center. The announcement was made at Banner Drop on Jan. 7, much to the surprise of Step Sing participants and other Samford community members in the audience.
As part of Step Sing, Samford’s longest lasting and most popular tradition, each participating group designs and executes a banner with the name of their show, as well as a misleading visual to throw other groups off their true theme. They are revealed to the student body at Banner Drop, which takes place the Sunday evening before spring classes start and is the first event to kick off Step Sing each year.
In the past, the banners were hung in the Caf on campus for students to look at and discuss in the weeks between Banner Drop and the weekend of Step Sing performances, which is Jan. 25-27 this year.
In their announcement at Banner Drop, Head Basketball Coaches Bucky McMillan and Carly Kuhns explained that this change to Samford’s longest-standing tradition was made in the hopes that it would help increase student engagement at basketball games during the month of January. However, according to an announcement on the Samford Athletics website, “The banners are usually displayed in the Samford Cafeteria, but renovations to the facility made that impossible this year, so the Athletics Department offered the Hanna Center as an alternative location.”
Lauren Taylor, associate vice president of student affairs, also provided an explanation for the change of banner location.
“Step Sing is a 74-year tradition on campus taking place in January. Men’s and Women’s Basketball also have several home games in January. Athletics and Student Affairs Staff met to discuss how best to support both Step Sing and the Basketball programs,” Taylor said.
Moving the banners’ location was not the only way that the Student Affairs Division and Department of Athletics tried to increase student interest in athletics during the Step Sing season. They also told participating groups that they could not schedule Step Sing practice on Thursday, Jan. 11 because of a basketball game that night, required all Step Sing group directors to be at the basketball game on Saturday, Jan. 20 and had students at that game vote on their favorite banner design.
Whether or not student engagement at basketball games has been affected by these attempts is unclear, and the Student Affairs Division has not received any specific student feedback on these efforts.
“At this time, we are not aware of any student feedback (positive or negative) on Step Sing Banners being placed in Pete Hanna Center,” Taylor said. “However, it is exciting for Step Sing to be able to support Men’s and Women’s Basketball and Men’s and Women’s Basketball to support Step Sing. Athletic events and Step Sing are both great extracurricular activities for students to be able to participate in.”
Scarritt Purdy, a nursing major and participant in AOII’s Step Sing show, was at Banner Drop when they made the announcement.
“I was initially sad because I enjoyed the conversation starter that the banners are in the caf,” Purdy said. “They get more view time in the caf and in my experience, it creates an increased excitement for Step Sing in the upcoming weeks.”
Though she understands the motivations behind the decision, she does not feel increased student attendance can solely be attributed to the banners being in Pete Hanna.
“I think the larger contributor to the increased attendance at the games was because of Step Sing practice scheduling, not because of the placement of the banners in Pete Hanna, but I think that the banners being moved helped tie together the two campus organizations,” Purdy said.
Though she was sad at first, Purdy came to appreciate the decision to change the location for this year’s banners.
“I thought it was an exciting partnership between Step Sing and basketball. As a member of the band, it was exciting to have many people in Step Sing also at the basketball games,” Purdy said. “It has been a great addition to Pete Hannah and has sparked some conversation with Samford fans who do not know as much about Step Sing.”
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