Cleveland State’s annual Health + Hoops school day game is a massive undertaking.
How massive? Start with the crowd size. An announced 3,094 fans witnessed last Thursday’s 72-55 victory over Detroit Mercy, a throng ten times larger than the more-typical 317 who populated the Wolstein Center two days later to see the Vikings defeat Oakland. The CSU men’s team drew 2,269 fans later on Saturday against Milwaukee, its largest crowd of the season, and averages 1,320 across 14 home dates so far.
Given those numbers, it’s reasonable to call Health + Hoops Cleveland State’s biggest sporting event of the year, at least in terms of the sheer number of people the university hosts. The anomaly isn’t lost on players like Destiny Leo, who said that “it was really, really fun for us just to have the Wolstein packed.”
Obviously, there are several other dimensions to the situation, too. For one thing, those 2,269 fans at the men’s contest against the Panthers were there of their own volition. The Vikings, a surprise first-place team generating increasing levels of attention, both locally and nationally, were hosting the preseason Horizon League favorites on a Saturday night, and people wanted to show up and watch what was objectively a big game.
The large women’s game crowd, conversely, was a horde of elementary and middle school kids on a field trip who had to be directly recruited to attend. Or, more accurately, their teachers and administrators had to be recruited to forego the day’s math and English lessons and bring them to the game.
The result was an all-hands situation in Cleveland State’s athletic department, as people like associate sports information director Renee Adam and Carrie Neville, CSU’s assistant athletics director for ticket sales and operations, stepped outside of their job descriptions to talk to as many schools as possible.
“I’m just so proud of Cleveland State athletics, and our school in general,” head coach Chris Kielsmeier said. “The amount of work that this takes to put on, to do it right, have it organized…we’re the beneficiaries of it, and a lot of people behind the scenes put so much into it. The amount that others put into our program is a really big deal.”
Kielsmeier wasn’t just talking about the loads of effort needed to get everyone through the gates.
The “health” part of Health + Hoops, necessary to sell the event as an educational offering, involved several fitness and sports-themed stations around the arena’s concourse prior to the game. Those were largely staffed and run by student-athletes from the other Vikings teams, who generally taught what they know best.
“I got to greet all of the kids,” women’s tennis junior Ella Franz said. “To see how excited these kids were was so fun. I was giving high fives and man, some of these kids have some strength. It was cold, and they were swinging with the high fives. That’s my favorite part, seeing the joy these kids have to come try a sport, especially sports they might not have access to. I think it’s so awesome to get to share how much I love it, and hopefully give that love to them too.”
Franz’s experience with her energetic pupils leads to another reality: asking three thousand kids to sit still and watch a game for a couple hours is a fool’s errand. Luckily, assistant coach Chenara Wilson had a few solutions in mind. Wilson – who “knows everybody,” according to Kielsmeier – offered up her extensive list of school contacts to help build up the crowd, then went to work on securing some of the peripherals that made the day a success.
One was a DJ, Yulissa Davila, who performs under the name “IamYulissa.” Last Thursday, Davila set up behind the baseline closest to the home locker room and provided the soundtrack for CSU’s warmups, then managed to spin the tracks needed to get whole sections of kids on their feet and dancing at several points during the game.
“My thought process was okay, hey, let’s get a DJ who can kind of play for us, for warmups, then play for the kids during the dead periods when they’re just sitting there, and give them something to do,” Wilson recalled. “I thought it went really well, I thought she did a great job with keeping them entertained.”
Another Wilson connection presented the kids with a uniquely interactive halftime show, as Philly Weeden brought his intense Charg’d Up cardio class, which looks like something straight out of an old Billy Blanks infomercial, to the Wolstein Center floor during the break.
Weeden led the crowd through a series of moves that Wilson often performs herself, as someone who attends Charg’d Up three times per week. Wilson took a shot at asking her instructor to do the halftime show, figuring he was a perfect fit for the day’s theme.
“It’s Health + Hoops, so let’s get an exercise guy here, and have him exercise at halftime,” Wilson explained. “He had them involved. They were moving, jumping jacks, and everything.”
“The passion and excitement in the building was electric,” Kielsmeier said. “It’s just one of those days you’ll always remember.”
After just about everyone in the Cleveland State athletic department played some role in setting the day up, the Vikings women’s basketball team did its part by beating the Titans, then connecting with as many of the kids as possible.
“It’s awesome,” forward Paulina Hernandez said. “It’s great that we get to impact kids and show them what it’s like to be DI athletes. After the game, we were able to go up and talk to them, give autographs, sign people’s arms.”
“I’m a little extra emotional because I’m proud of our players, I’m proud of the program, I’m proud that we were able to have a day like this,” Kielsmeier added. “It just makes me appreciate others much more.”
