If you’ve noticed an uptick in attendance, noise and excitement buzzing at recent Brown games, you may have noticed the Bear Pack, Brown Athletics’s new and improved official fan club.
The group kickstarted its campaign this past weekend to revitalize students’ engagement and interest in Brown Athletics, featuring promotional events for 10 different games across Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Formerly known as the Hype Squad, the fan club has been mostly inactive in the early months of fall. As a result, two students aimed to bring excitement and interest back to Brown sports.
The revitalization is the “passion project” of Margaret Woodberry ’24.5 — one of Hype Squad’s original advocates — and Hattie Grant ’25, both current student athletes.
“Having a bigger fan base is good for everyone involved,” Grant wrote in a message to The Herald. “The players feel supported and are boosted by their peers rallying around them.”
“The more (fans) that come, the greater the cheering and excitement, the more the game becomes an interactive event,” she added.
On Oct. 4, the Bear Pack launched their first official “hype weekend” on Instagram, after announcing their comeback on Oct. 1 following nearly six months of silence. The post promised a free dinner voucher for any student who checked in at three or more games across the 10 games and included a QR code link for any student interested in joining the Bear Pack.
“As one of the founding members of the Hype Squad I believe that the sense of community that can come from sports is something really important,” Woodberry wrote in an email to The Herald. “I think that having a group like this allows for a sense of community and connection beyond just athletics.”
For Grant, supporting the water polo and gymnastics teams as a member of the Hype Squad fueled her love for those sports. She wrote that the group’s influence was not just on athletics, but on campus life as a whole.
“I remember in the winter of 2023, when the men’s basketball game was sold out for the first time in years. Students were even turned away at the door,” she wrote. “This was mainly due to the basketball team and their playing, but I think the Hype Squad … played a role.”
“Standing in that crowd filled with my fellow students clad in white for white out was so thrilling, and I wasn’t even playing,” Grant added.
Some of Brown’s best athletics moments come with a powerful crowd behind the players. Many top sports programs in the country always have a powerful and committed fanbase behind them.
Woodberry and Grant are looking to bring that same culture to Providence, hoping that the hype can get behind Bruno.
“I think that using the Bear Pack and the sense of community that comes around rallying for your sports teams can really elevate the college experience,” Woodberry wrote.
The energy Bear Pack brings not only excites students but also brings new life to the players themselves, according to Grant. She hopes that the group will bring the same support for the men’s basketball team in 2023 to all teams at Brown.
Grant revived the Bear Pack due to her experience as a former rugby player, she said.
“It is a lesser known sport, so fan attendance was lower,” she wrote. “Having a group like the Bear Pack encourages students to explore sports that get less attention.”
Going forward, the Bear Pack will have a hype weekend each season,” according to Woodberry.
“There is room to create new traditions that will last a lot longer than any one person’s time at Brown,” Woodberry wrote. “The chance to leave a lasting impression on this school and athletics is something that really resonates with me.”
Dennis Carey is a Sports editor who enjoys playing volleyball, listening to and collecting vinyl records and poorly playing the guitar in his spare time.
