After their shocking upset over No. 1 seed Purdue on Friday night, Fairleigh Dickinson of Madison, New Jersey, was quickly vaulted to national prominence in the NCAA Tournament. Prominence that also includes the team’s band, which is actually being loaned to them by Dayton.
The Dayton Flyers men’s basketball team, which did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament, has lent their band to Fairleigh Dickinson’s team, an arrangement which began after FDU won its First Four against Texas Southern. The Flyers band supported FDU during their upset over Purdue, and did so again on Sunday night as they played Florida Atlantic.
The request for Dayton’s band to play for FDU came from the school’s athletic director to Dr. Willie Morris, the director of the Flyers’ pep band.
“Whenever someone calls and wants us to play for them, I always ask, ‘Ok, first thing you need to do is send us your fight song so that we can learn it,'” Morris said. “We want to represent your school the best we can.”
The band then learned FDU’s fight song only a few hours before their victory over Purdue, which earned them the right to compete in the second round of the tournament. FDU’s Cinderella run came to an end in a 78-70 loss to the second round, with Florida Atlantic moving on to the East Regional semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
