Alabama Athletics’ Halloween Extravaganza Breaks Attendance Record for Second Straight Year
10/22/2018 10:28:00 PM | General
The annual event is hosted by Alabama Athletics’ Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in conjunction with the Tide’s Life Skills initiative
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – It was another record-breaking year for Alabama Athletics' Halloween Extravaganza, with more than 2,600 members of the Tuscaloosa community flooding the Hank Crisp Indoor Facility Monday night.
Attendance for the 16th annual Extravaganza bettered last year's record total by at least 500 ghosts, zombies, police men and women, super heroes and super villains. That total doesn't include the 250-plus Crimson Tide student-athletes, many in costumes of their own, who took part in the annual celebration.
"This is my fourth year being a part of the Halloween Extravaganza and looking out here tonight, I don't know if we've ever had this many kids, this many families, come out and just have a blast," senior men's golfer Alex Green said. "We do it for the local kids in the community who can come out and interact with us and learn a little about sports, but mainly just have a lot of fun."
The event is put on each year by the UA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the Tide's Life Skills initiative. Each team hosted activities in a night that also included houses of the bounce and inflatable variety as well as a Big Al sighting. The Tide mascot was in a costume of his own for the festivities.
"All the teams get so excited to come here every year because it's just such an opportunity for us to give back to the people who love on us all year," senior swimmer Emma Murray said.
On the way in, members of the community filled four Beat Auburn Beat Hunger barrels to overflowing in support of the West Alabama Food Bank and on the way out, the kids did a little trick or treating with candy courtesy of the Crimson Tide Foundation.
The Halloween Extravaganza is the latest in a series of events and programming designed to fulfill the Crimson Tide Life Skills' mission to provide University of Alabama student-athletes opportunities for growth through personal development and service opportunities. The goal is to empower student-athletes to be difference-makers and people of positive influence as they pursue success at Alabama and beyond.
"I love Alabama and I want to be able to help the community so much because they help us so much, so it means everything to me that we can have these fun experiences and they can come interact with us because they support us all the time, so it's fun to support them," senior rower Virginia Dodenhoff said. "It means the world to me that we can do things like this."
All the latest information on Alabama Athletics can be found via @UA_Athletics on Twitter and Instagram and Alabama Athletics on Facebook. You can follow Alabama's Life Skills program on Twitter at @BamaLifeSkills and the UA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at @UA_SAAC.
