Fairfield Victory Bell

Fairfield

By Reid Maus

When you hear it ring, it’s a good night to be an Indian.

The Victory Bell is a new tradition of Fairfield athletics, but it’s one that will soon be deeply rooted throughout the athletic department.

The idea sprouted just a couple hours after first-year athletic director Aaron Blankenship took over the job.

“Damon Bullock came to me about 12 hours after

I took the AD job and said I’ve got this bell in my backyard. I think it could be something cool,” said Blankenship. “At that point, I was like sure.” 12 hours after taking the job, surely there are other things on the plate than starting a new tradition. But the idea lingered.

“I wasn’t thinking much about it, but once the dust settled I was able to think a little more,” he said. “Damon and his son Wade restored the bell, painted it and made it what it is today. They’re the ones who made it, and based on that we formed the tradition.”

Blankenship didn’t want it to be used for just one sport. He wanted the bell to ring for every Fairfield athletic team-- and it has.

“I wanted it to be something that we can use in every sport,” he said. “We’ve taken it to the bowling alley. We’ve carried it to Walden Ponds for the golf matches. It’s traveled with us more than just the home games that people would think.”

Blankenship will be the first to tell you that lugging that bell around from venue to venue isn’t easy. He even jokes that he might have gained a few muscles from lugging it around. All that moving of the bell has helped the community take the new custom in stride.

“Moving the bell around as made the Bell a million times more popular than if we just had it at one venue or one sport.”

The Bell rang through Alumni Stadium for the first time this past year when the Indians took care of business against Centerville on the gridiron. The person who rang it was someone held very special to the Fairfield football program.

Monica Moore, the mother of the late Mason Blanchard who was a Fairfield student who died from a rare form of cancer recently, was the first to chime the bell.

When the bell rang the tradition officially started. Now, you hear the clangs of metal every time Fairfield wins at home.

Superstition comes with the territory in sports, and this bell is no different. In a perfect world, the bell only rings after a home victory. By the nature of bells though, they tend to ring as you move them. Which Blankenship realized when the athletic department hauled it around from venue to venue.

“I’m the most superstitious about it,” said Blankenship. “The bell is on wheels so obviously when you pull too hard, it rings a little bit. I’m known to be a little superstitious by removing the bell completely, just in case… I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little-stitious.”

That being said, the bell used to sit in the athletic department and anytime that the department had good news they would ring the bell. Which goes somewhat against the edict of only ringing after wins.

“That’s the life of athletic directors. We do what we want, we make our own rules,” he said jokingly.

They moved the Bell from the office to either Alumni Stadium or the basketball arena, depending on the season, where it anxiously awaits its next ring.