{"id":911,"date":"2026-07-16T15:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/?p=911"},"modified":"2026-07-07T09:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T13:41:31","slug":"marshall-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/2026\/07\/16\/marshall-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Traditions Every Student Should Know About"},"content":{"rendered":"<div  class=\"herdpress-block wp-block-herdpress-html has-white-background-color has-background   \">\n\t\t\t<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/\">Marshall has been around since 1837<\/a>, and in nearly 200 years it&#8217;s built <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/sample-page\/traditions\/\">traditions<\/a> that shape what it feels like to be a student here. Some go back almost a century, while others are annual events you&#8217;ll find yourself looking forward to every year. Here&#8217;s a glimpse at what you&#8217;ll encounter throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Game Day and School Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Home football games at <a href=\"https:\/\/herdzone.com\/facilities\/joan-c.-edwards-stadium\/3\">Joan C. Edwards Stadium<\/a> come with their own set of rituals worth knowing.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Thunder Walk.<\/strong> Before each home game, the football team walks through a crowd of cheering tailgaters on the way to the stadium. It&#8217;s worth showing up early to line the route.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Sons of Marshall.&#8221;<\/strong> Written in 1935, the school&#8217;s official <a href=\"https:\/\/herdzone.com\/sports\/2018\/6\/11\/trads-mars-song-html\">fight song<\/a> kicks off every home game when the 300-member Marching Thunder takes the field.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;We Are&#8230;Marshall.&#8221;<\/strong> A crowd chant that started at the old Fairfield Stadium in the 1980s, it has since become the rallying cry of the entire Marshall community. By your first home game, you&#8217;ll know it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Annual Traditions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A handful of events anchor the Marshall calendar year after year.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>President&#8217;s Freshman Convocation.<\/strong> Before fall classes begin, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/sample-page\/traditions\/#:~:text=President%E2%80%99s%20Freshman%20Convocation,of%20its%20alumni.\">incoming class gathers<\/a> for a photo in front of the John Marshall statue, then walks with the president to the Keith Albee Performing Arts Center for a ceremony marking the official start of their time at Marshall.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Annual Fountain Ceremony.<\/strong> On November 14 of each year, the Marshall community gathers at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/neverforget\/\">Memorial Fountain<\/a> to honor the 75 people lost in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/special-collections\/memorial\/\">1970 plane crash<\/a>. The fountain water goes quiet during the service and stays silent until spring.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Constitution Week and Quoits.<\/strong> Each September, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/sample-page\/traditions\/#:~:text=Constitution%20Week,John%20Marshall%E2%80%99s%20birthday.\">Marshall honors its namesake<\/a>, John Marshall, fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, with lectures, an essay competition and a quoits tournament. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/drinko\/rules-of-quoits\/\">Quoits<\/a>, similar to horseshoes but played with iron rings, was reportedly one of John Marshall&#8217;s favorite pastimes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>International Festival.<\/strong> This is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/international\/mu-international-festival\/\">free, public event<\/a> held each November for more than 50 years featuring international food, music and cultural displays from around the world.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Alpha Xi Delta Strawberry Breakfast.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/sample-page\/traditions\/#:~:text=Alpha%20Xi%20Delta,and%20strawberry%20butter.\">Held each April since 1951<\/a>, this campus event serves more than 1,000 meals, including pancakes, eggs, sausage, biscuits and chocolate-covered strawberries. The best part? The homemade strawberry butter!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Campus Lore Worth Knowing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Marshall&#8217;s identity is tied to a few things worth knowing before you arrive.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Thundering Herd.<\/strong> The nickname almost didn\u2019t stick. In the 1930s, \u201cBoogercats\u201d was a serious contender. Ultimately, students voted to make <a href=\"https:\/\/herdzone.com\/sports\/2018\/6\/11\/mars-trads-html\">Thundering Herd<\/a> the official nickname in 1965, along with the buffalo as the mascot and green and white as the school colors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Marco the Bison.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/history-and-traditions\/symbols\/#:~:text=Marco%20the%20Bison,Marshall%20University.\">Marshall&#8217;s beloved mascot<\/a> has been around since the 1930s. The name Marco comes from &#8220;Marshall College.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Marshall Artists Series.<\/strong> Dating to 1936, it&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/muartistseries\/#\/\">second-oldest college-town arts and entertainment series<\/a> in the country, hosted at the historic Keith Albee Performing Arts Center in downtown Huntington.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Marshall&#8217;s traditions are a big part of what shapes the community here. You&#8217;ll start discovering them from the moment you set foot on campus.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/visit\/\">Plan your visit<\/a> today and see it for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}