OUR VIEW: Kudos to you, ASUSU
It is hoped everyone has recovered after the long weekend from what was nothing short of a stellar Week of Welcome. Recovery seems to indeed be the right way to describe the weekend after the amount of events, and the high-quality delivery. It seems like the popular opinion, and maybe even logical assumption, indicates that Week of Welcome has never been done better than it was in 2010.
From Monday to Saturday last week, Logan didn’t feel much like the small town we are all used to. From the first weeknight of the new school year there was an actual rock concert going on at the TSC ballroom, complete with two quality bands, actual mosh pits and crowd surfers flying everywhere. While the fun police, also known as the ASUSU advisers overseeing all of the events, had their fits over trying to force the crowd to act more like they were at church service than they were a rock concert, the will of the crowd prevailed much like it would at any such concert where the crowd’s manpower is too overwhelming for security to adequately handle. And just like at most concerts, the crowd knew its place in keeping everybody safe enough to avoid injury while still rocking out as hard as they did.
The next few nights saw a successful showing of Iron Man 2 on Old Main Hill, rather than HPER field, which traditionally resulted in nobody being able to hear the movie. Then there were the comedians on Wednesday night, who actually told a dirty joke or two to incite laughter from the crowd, and they succeeded in doing just that.
High stakes bingo drew rowdy crowds on Thursday just as it always does, and the annual Friday night 80’s dance was substantially less sweaty and smelly than year’s past after being moved to the cool air outside on the quad.
Saturday night drew everything to a solid finish as 800 North was closed down for yet another rock concert that actually felt like a real rock concert. And there was that whole thing with the Utah State football team nearly pulling off the first epic upset of this new decade, which win or lose was an absolute thrill to watch.
The biggest thing is that everything that went on all week felt like it the kind of things that normally don’t happen at little old Utah State. Everything that went on all week was big time. Nothing was dumbed down or mellowed out to accommodate to any specific crowd, and the end results were huge turnouts, quality organization and great production at every evening’s events.
To not give the proverbial kudos to the likes of Tom Atwood, Dan Ricks, Skyler Parkhurst and everybody else involved for making that week what it was would be a crying shame. We can only hope that their posterity within ASUSU are able to at least maintain the standard of excellence laid down for the people in charge of the 2010 Week of Welcome.