On March 19, at their annual Blitz Day event, the Student Activities Board (SAB) announced hosts, the musical artist and theme for this year’s Drake Relays Week.
Abbie Whittemore, Alex Chavez and Delaney Borja will be this year’s Relays hosts. The headlining artist is Waka Flocka Flame, famous for the song “No Hands,” and Aux Cord Wars, a live musical game show, will be the opening act. The theme this year is “Going for Gold,” inspired by the upcoming Paris Summer Olympics.
“When [the co-chairs] reached out to me before spring break and gave me the good news, I was so excited,” Borja, a senior studying public relations and digital media production said. “This has been on my Drake bucket list, and I feel so lucky to have been selected by my classmates and peers.”
Borja is looking forward to the Drake Road Races, where she’ll run the 5K for the first time, and the foam pit party.
“It was super hard to keep it under wraps, but the excitement was so worth it,” Borja said. “Blitz Day is such a great event to bring the student body together to get hyped for Relays.”
Whittemore, another Relays host this year, is a senior studying biochemistry, cell and molecular biology. She first heard she was nominated over email a few weeks ago.
“I was super excited,” Whittemore said. “I’ve wanted this since freshman year — I’ve loved Relays since my freshman year.”
Whittemore said the Relays are the best time of year for school spirit because people are attending track and field events and events hosted by SAB. This spirit is one of the reasons she wanted to be a Relays host.
“I just wanted to be part of the fun and excitement that SAB is able to put on for the students, interact with staff, go to all the events and represent Drake,” Whittemore said.
Her involvement as Vice President of Student Organizations on Student Senate is one strength she hopes to bring to her role as Relays host. She’s looking forward to hyping up the students at the track events.
“I feel like I’m a very high-energy, excited person, so I’m excited to transfer that to the students as well,” Whittemore said.
Chavez, a senior studying psychology, said that while he is involved in many academic organizations, he considers himself an introvert.
“It’s stepping out of my comfort zone. I’m used to working in the office of events. Within that role, I’m used to being on the behind the scenes of all the events around campus, so now in this position, I’m brought to the forefront,” Chavez said.
Chavez thinks that the wide array of academic organizations he participates in and the connections he built will set him apart as a Relays host.
“I’m really looking forward to [the Relays events], especially Beautiful Bulldogs,” Chavez said.
Chavez hopes that the variety of organizations and majors that the three hosts are part of will increase attendance at Relays events.
“We’re definitely an interesting mix of personalities for the three hosts,” Chavez said. “We cover a lot of different domains of the campus community.”
SAB also released the timeline of the events for Relays week. The Relays Concert will begin at 7 p.m. on Forest Avenue in front of the Drake Stadium.
Trizzy Dollaz is a host and director of operations for Aux Cord Wars. Dollaz is looking forward to getting the attendants ready for Waka Flocka Flame, whom he considers a hip-hop legend.
“Students are typically used to going to concerts and listening to up-and-coming artists before the major artist comes out,” Dollaz said. “With Aux Cord Wars, they get a chance to be part of the show.”
The show explores many different genres of music. For each genre, the host brings two students from the crowd to the stage and each chooses three songs. The DJ plays each song, and then the crowd votes on who has better music.
“I’m interested to see what type of music that Drake [students] throw through the speakers,” Dollaz said.
Dollaz hopes that an interactive experience like this will encourage students to show up at 7 p.m. rather than only for the headliner, and that Aux Cord Wars perform again at Drake in future years.
“Once Drake sees the show for the first time, everything is going to make sense,” Dollaz said.
While they did not decide the musical guest, Relays co-chairs Brynn Harnett and Addy Bockarie chose the theme and used student nominations to choose the hosts. Harnett hopes to continue the tradition of making Relays decisions based on what the students want.
“I want people to just have fun this year at Relays and take away the positives rather than focusing on the negatives and what they didn’t like,” Harnett said. “This year we really just tried to think of what the students want — while still making the University happy — and put the students first.”
