For my money, there are few weekends to better experience as a college student than the weekend before classes start for the fall semester.
Of course, all the usual holiday weekends, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, they get their due at all points in your life. But that weekend before classes start? It's all of the social benefits of college, without the challenges of the classroom to that might get in the way.
For freshmen and transfer students, it's a weekend of making new friends, trying new things and hopefully working your class schedule so you're not lost on Monday. For returning students, it's an easy chance to catch up with old friends over their summer breaks and visit all the best spots from semesters past before a paper catches you in the library past closing time.
In the world of college sports, it has felt like everyone's already been here, outside of the fact you can actually find a place to park in the Greenland Dr. parking lot these days. With football camp in full swing, three soccer exhibitions under our belts and volleyball about to hit the road for their first tournament of 2022, the fall-exclusive sports are in full swing.
Beyond that, cross country is practicing in the early morning hours around campus, men's and women's basketball continue their summer grind under the big fans in the Murphy Center auxiliary gyms, and even the tennis locker room just outside our athletic communications offices are seeing more activity.
But the real mark of the return to school, ever since I started covering sports as a student journalist at Pine Whispers, my high school paper back in Winston-Salem, N.C., is not the first day of class, but the first game of the season for the athletic department. MTSU hit that milestone this weekend, when the Blue Raiders took a tough 1-0 loss on the soccer field early Friday morning to North Florida.
This week, however, presents both the true start of our athletic season throughout the MT Athletic department and a chance for students to see what being a Blue Raider is all about, when Soccer takes the field for the first true home game of the season on Thursday night against Ole Miss, the first of 10 home games for the Blue Raiders on the pitch this season, and the first of two home games against SEC opponents, with Vanderbilt swinging by next month.
Football and volleyball start their seasons on the road, but will soon return back to Murfreesboro, with football's home opener against Tennessee State set for kickoff on September 17th, while volleyball hosts its home tournament, the Blue Raider Invitational, starting on September 9th.
My best advice to college students looking for somewhere to go is to go to your home athletic events while you're a student! MTSU soccer and volleyball matches are free to everyone, and football games are free to all students. Have a friend, a sibling, a parent that you want to bring to the game with you? Not a problem, guest tickets to football games are just $8. You can find more information here.
So, to all MTSU students, new and returning, welcome home! I hope to see you out there cheering your home team all throughout the 2022-23 season with us. It's going to be a great one!
Original source can be found here
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