Hey Alumni!
My name is Tommy McFarland (also occasionally referred to as Gator, Thermos, Grass, Tommy tommy tommy tommy, and many other nicknames most of which have failed to stick) and I am your 2025 Pep Band Manager. I’m a Junior Trumpet player from New Rochelle, NY and I’m a Computer Science major with a hopeful Physics minor.
I’m lucky to inherit a band in great shape. Our first rehearsal of the semester gathered close to 90 people in Fischell, plus another 10 who got a suck point. All of our signups have been jam-packed, even with 7 or 8 outside tickets for home games. I’m hoping to keep fostering the growth of the band and make sure that we allow as many people as possible to play along with us. The freshmen are as tenacious as ever, as even I’m struggling to stay above them in points.
Sitting here writing this in North Country on our first away trip of the year, I’m mixed with excitement and anticipation. Our hockey team has certainly taken us for a ride, and for the second game of 2025, we had that newsworthy massive brawl. But, I’m excited for where the road takes us: We have at least two more hockey trips: one to Brown/Yale and one to Union/RPI. Our Masketball team has been doing exceptionally well, so assuming no major surprises (supposedly there’s a 93% chance so I feel safe saying this) we’ll be back to Providence for Ivy Madness. And, if Schafer can get the team together for his last season we might be able to squeeze in a couple more trips to end out the season.
At home, WHockey is showing themselves once again to be one of if not our best team, having won the Ivy League without even playing two of the teams. We’ve also upped our attendance at Wasketball and later this season we’ll be making our way to Wrestling and to both MAX and WAX.
We have a great Pep Board this year, so I also want to give a shout-out to them. Our social chairs are cooking up a ton of fun events (hopefully even a meet and greet with some of the teams). The librarians have been hard at work digitizing the entire folder, turning printing from a 30-minute job into a 1-minute job. Our secretary is writing spectacular emails, and all of our Pep Board is hard at work making people feel welcome and included.
Here’s to a million and one away trips!
Tommy McFarland ‘26