Iona College Athletics is introducing a new plan to bring more energy and student participation to games as part of a new campaign to improve the brand of Iona athletics.

A big goal for Iona coming into both the men’s and women’s basketball seasons is to increase the amount of energy in the fan base by getting more Iona students to come to the games.

The idea originated during last year’s NCAA tournament in Ohio when a local high school pep band came to the game to represent Iona.

They were full of energy, they were passionate and they energized the whole arena.

Now, Iona wants to use this same strategy with Iona students in the pep band in order to ignite the crowd every time there is a game.

More importantly, they want to use this to give Iona students a way to get more involved.

“We want to eliminate quietness to games because we don’t think that we get enough students at the games,” said Joshua Cohen, assistant athletic director of marketing and tickets.

“We want to make students feel a part of the team and by doing this they’ll want to show Gael pride,” he said.

Not one basketball game was filled to capacity last year, despite the success of both the men’s and women’s teams.

Engaging the students of Iona in their school’s teams is the current goal for the athletics department.

The goal is to have them channel their passion into every single game and the pep band is the key in doing so.

“In the past there was a group of local men in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s who came to the games and were the pep band, but we want to increase student engagement which is why we want to issue a student pep band in the future,” said Cohen.

The student pep band won’t be in action until next basketball season because there is not enough time to organize it before the coming season starts.