By: Lincoln Reed | Sports Editor
Silent Night is a tradition rooted in irony.
This basketball tradition thrives on silence, but is perhaps the one event when Taylor's collective voice is loudest. The event transcends the sport of basketball as a shining example of Taylor's community and ideals.
Silent Night's origins are uncertain. Assistant basketball coach and assistant athletic director Steve Brooks proposed the idea in 1997. The basketball team already had the Ivanhoe's Classic-a weekend tournament before finals week. In response to dwindling student support at games, Brooks and the basketball team wanted a way for students to be involved. This desire developed into an idea that became Silent Night. The first few years of the event featured students dressing in pajamas and holding newspapers over their faces until Taylor's 10th point.
"It's probably the single most-attended event in our year and the spirit is just amazing," said Vice President for Student Development Skip Trudeau.
The tradition has evolved during the past decade and has even piqued the attention of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Snapchat. Sports Illustrated ranked Taylor's Silent Night 20th in its article "64 reasons to be excited for the 2015-16 college hoops season."
Snapchat is doing Live Stories during tonight's Silent Night with the hashtag #TUSilentNight. The accumulated footage from students' and others' Snapchats during the night will be compiled into a short video that will be available for millions of Snapchat users to see.
"It's obviously terrific exposure," said head coach Josh Andrews. "We get an influx of emails from recruits and that sort of thing. (Silent Night) gets that national exposure . . . It gives us an environment very few players at our level get to play in."
Silent Night has received recognition from ESPN since 2010. However, this year will be different. ESPN has made a short feature about tonight's game and the Silent Night tradition. According to the feature's producer, Luis Alden, ESPN's coverage will be potentially seen by hundreds of thousands of people across the country.
ESPN host and news correspondent Jeremy Schaap visited Taylor on Dec. 4 to interview players, coaches, students and others involved in Silent Night's evolution.
"This is a fun piece for us," Schaap said. "Something kind of quirky. And of course it helps that it's Indiana. There are all kinds of interesting basketball traditions, obviously, in the state, and this speaks to kind of the larger culture of basketball as well in a way."
In addition to being a nationally known basketball tradition, Silent Night is a tangible way in which Taylor displays its intentional community and ideals to its neighbors and the country as a whole. The event itself features students, faculty, staff and community members gathering in one central location, all united in silence. Students fill Odle Arena dressed in a colorful mosaic of costumes, waiting for the 10th point to be scored. After this, the entire arena erupts in a deafening chorus of shouting voices that shakes the building.
When Odle Arena explodes with cheering, Taylor sends a powerful message to collegiate sports about the power of an intentional community united in one cause. Basketball may be the main reason Taylor students gather on Silent Night, but the event itself presents a platform to display Taylor University's commitment to excellence on and off of the court.
"We have people from all over calling and saying, 'How can we come and watch this?' It brings people to Taylor, to our campus," said interim Athletic Director Amy Stucky. "The students are crazy and they are going to do crazy stuff, but it's not rude, it's not crude, it's not poor language. We're singing Silent Night at the end. It's just good, honest, clean fun."
Taylor's men's basketball team enters the game with a record of 4-6 overall and 1-2 in the Crossroads League. The Trojans face Ohio University Chillicothe tonight to begin the 32nd-annual Ivanhoe's Classic.
From a player's perspective, Silent Night presents the opportunity to play in an environment foreign to NAIA sports. Taylor may not have the student body numbers of a massive Division I school, but the environment created by the fans and students will leave an unforgettable impression on both Taylor basketball players and visiting teams.
"It's one of those things that you'll always cherish, you'll always appreciate-tell your kids about, tell your grandkids about," said senior guard Kyle Stidom. "You're a part of one of the coolest traditions in college basketball. I'm very thankful that I've had the opportunity to be a part of it."
Taylor is 18-0 in Silent Night games. The only player to score the 10th point four years in a row is Taylor basketball assistant coach Casey Coons ('13). Sophomore Keaton Hendricks scored the 10th point in last year's Silent Night. This year's scorer will remain a mystery until tonight. Doors open at 4:45 p.m. Tip-off is at 6 p.m.
Photograph and illustration by Fayth Glock and Eric Andrews
