BY PATRICK LYONS, Columnist

If you have ever been to a college sporting event in America, chances are you took part in a tradition of some sort. If you’ve never been to a college sports game, then I pity you. Traditions are a part of what college sports are all about. They give a certain identity to the student body and set the school apart.

Tradition makes your school what it is, from a buffalo racing across a field, a student section naming themselves after a coach, a flaming spear thrown by a man on horseback to the word “hum” bringing a stadium to life.

Oftentimes traditions aren’t necessarily planned, they just happen to come about spontaneously. Regardless, they have one particular effect that makes them special; everybody, yes everybody, takes part in them. They unify a student body and bring life to the school as a whole.

University of Georgia senior and agricultural economics major Maggie Dudacek couldn’t imagine being a Bulldog without some of the traditions that surround the UGA sports world.

“There are so many traditions at Georgia, obviously one of the biggest ones is when the Sanford Stadium splits in two groups,  one side yells ‘Georgia’ and the other yells ‘Bulldogs,’” Dudacek said. “The student body has dozens of quirky things we do before baseball games and football games.”

Looking around the country at all of the crazy different things that teams and fans do to carry on a tradition, I couldn’t help but wonder why Piedmont doesn’t have any big traditions.

Students paint up for basketball and volleyball games but there’s not that one, unifying tradition. Maybe we could paint Lion paws on Georgia Street or create one theme for each team and live by it.

Why not have one chant that Piedmont lives by and the student section shouts at every game? Or, perhaps hang a sign in each of the locker rooms with a unifying quote that acts as a creed for the teams to build on.

Like every other college kid, I’m going to graduate and begin my life as an adult. But what makes being an alumni so special is the spirit and family principles that you took part in as a student. The memories I have made here as a Lion will last me a lifetime and I will always support our teams, but sometimes I wish there was one special tradition that students, faculty, staff and alumni can carry with them. The semester is winding down and the sports seasons are reaching the home stretch. Who knows, maybe the last weeks of this semester will bring about a tradition that will last forever.

Or, maybe one has already been born this year, and we just don’t know it yet.