The Albany Lacrosse Team Singing "Alive" By Pearl Jam Before Every Game Is What Being A Pure, Unadulterated Dude Is All About
It breaks my heart that there are people out there who will never understand what it's like to be a part of a locker room. You just see all these nerds across college campuses these days and they'll never know what it's like to be with the fellas and have moments like this. Maybe that's why they're so angry all the time. Maybe that's why they feel the need to make everybody else around them so miserable as well. Because I can assure you that if they had a group of dudes to sing "Alive" in the locker room with, they wouldn't have any other cares in the world.
America was built upon just being a bunch of dudes. The fellas loved to get after it so much that they overthrew the biggest empire in the world at the time. It's just you and the boys, and nothing else matters. Everything and everyone else is just in the way. And that's clearly the type of bond they have going on there in that Albany locker room. You get 4, maybe 5, years with the squad. But for the rest of your life--every time "Alive" by Pearl Jam comes on the radio, they'll be instantly transported back to that locker room. They'll be 75 with grandchildren one day, but when someone throws "Alive" on the aux? They're 22 again looking to go out and lay a smackdown on Merrimack. Because while college lacrosse might end, dudes last forever.
By the way, the full story on why Albany listens to "Alive" before games is pretty awesome if you want to give that full article a read. Quick sparknotes is that they team just needed a change in pregame music to get the juice up and "Alive" ended up being the magic pill they were looking for. But then it became a rallying cry for JP Honsinger, a kid who first "joined" the Albany lacrosse team when he was 10-years-old and diagnosed with a rare genetic condition. That was 11-years ago and he's been with the team ever since.
Mandatory to listen to the full track.