The Rec Plex is now host not just to weight lifters, basketball players, racquetball aficionados and jazzercizers: It’s also home to musicians, at least during select Wolfpack basketball games.

Music Industry Studies freshman Evan Wilson has organized a group of about 10 students into a spirit band, which has played at two men’s games and one women’s game so far.

The athletics department, as well as music professor John Snyder, have supported the band’s effort to “rally the troops,” as athletics director Michael Giorlando put it.

“The goal was to create an environment at the games that would make (them) an event,” said Giorlando.

He said the band has generated overwhelming support from players and fans.

Giorlando said he has been trying to generate interest in a band for three years, without success. Even now, Wilson has faced the challenges of coordinating rehearsal times and getting people to actually commit to the band.

“To persist in the face of that kind of doubt … that must be gratifying,” said Snyder.

The Student Government Association has contributed $2,000 to the band. So have both the men’s and women’s athletics departments. The same goes for Snyder, whose funding is coming from a chairman’s endowment.

Snyder said, however, “It’s not the money that drives (the band). It’s the notion of it.”

He explained that since the band integrates the College of Music, Loyola athletics and the SGA, it’s living up to administrators’ recent push towards cooperation among different groups on campus.

“We’re trying to meet the mandate to work together,” said Snyder.

Catherine Cotton can be reached at [email protected].