Each player took out her phone and put in headphones to hear what all the commotion was about. In Chipotle the day before Syracuse was set to play Indiana, back Lies Lagerweij had received a tweet from someone claiming to have made a rap song promoting the No. 1, undefeated team.

“We were all sitting there like, ‘Wait, what? What is this?’” goalkeeper Jess Jecko said.

Lagerweij told her team and suddenly the YouTube video began playing. Someone was rapping, “Syracuse, get loose,” and rhyming their names and numbers over a beat.

It wasn’t the first time Tevin Studdard created a song for a team. The 23-year-old Indiana State University senior has written 75 collegiate “Team Themes” and was looking through the schedules of nearby Louisville’s teams when he chanced upon the Cardinals playing No. 1 Syracuse on Oct. 9.

For the Orange, the song’s lyrics have become team catchphrases and something to laugh about. But Studdard’s song, bumping on the Syracuse team bus back to the hotel, was a product of a life-altering moment with his American Idol-winning cousin. His love for music started back on an Indianapolis high school football field during “Beatbox Thursdays” when his coach would spit a beat and Studdard freestyled over it. Eventually, Studdard composed a team song. He shouted-out local WNBA star Tamika Catchings, then playing for the Indiana Fever, and sent it to her on Facebook. Catchings liked it, Studdard said, and asked him to make one for the Fever.

“I made her promise me that, if it was good enough, I could perform it at a game,” Studdard said. “I went into the studio like Superman.”

The Fever made it the team’s official song and, for Studdard, it validated his change in lifestyle.

Studdard talked with Ruben about music when he was young and wanted to do something positive. For a while, he didn’t know what exactly to do, but seven years later, performing live at a Fever game as a high-schooler, he felt positive energy he didn’t want to let go of. He later performed the song for an 8-year-old Fever fan with a heart condition at her school.

Seeing that girl made Studdard want to reach more people and share his anthems with other fans and players.

“He had to put a lot of time into it and he had to learn all our names and everything,” said midfielder Alyssa Manley, who was mentioned in Studdard’s tweet. “It was cool that he did that.”

Head coach Ange Bradley never listened to the song and didn’t read past the first line of lyrics Studdard emailed to the field hockey recruiting account. The rap music didn’t appeal to her — she sticks to the ‘70s and ‘80s, particularly Van Morrison — and she focused on preparation for Indiana.

“It’s nice that he did it,” Bradley said. “But it’s an external distraction and I don’t get too into a whole lot of external. That’s just who I am … That doesn’t appeal to me, but to the kids it did.”

Lagerweij randomly quotes Studdard’s line about the goalkeeper to Jecko, “Let’s go with Jess Jecko!” in the locker room or around campus. The team uses lyrics as captions on Instagram.

Jecko doesn’t see the team playing the song to hype themselves up before big games, but she said some of the team, particularly Lagerweij, listens to it often.

“It’s pretty catchy. I approve of it,” Jecko said, laughing. “I mean, (the team) says, ‘Syracuse get loose,’ now.”

Published on October 26, 2015 at 11:30 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR