May 08, 2009

Contact:   Bill Giduz

A publicity photo for the video (courtesy Austin Bell '10)

A music video written by Davidson College athletes that extols the virtues of the Vail Commons dining hall has become a viral Internet hit.

Propelled by the fact that the lyricists and actors include basketball phenom Stephen Curry ’10, the production “I Love Commons”  is being featured so far on ESPN.com and SI.com, Dime Magazine, the Charlotte Observer, and Yahoo! Sports.

The video is a remix of a song by rapper Asher Roth titled “I Love College.” But while Roth’s song features rampant alcohol abuse and partying, “I Love Commons” celebrates healthy friendship and good food at Davidson’s dining hall. In a light-hearted, melodic, low-key rap, the student actors praise the Commons’ friendly staff, burritos, chicken parmesan, pizza bar and other offerings.

Basketball player Steve Rossiter ’10 said he and his regular group of Commons friends were dining together recently when someone began singing Roth's “I Love College.” Someone then substituted “Commons” for “College” and they were off to the lyric races!

“We went straight to Chambers, got a classroom and started writing until we had it all down,” Rossiter said. His co-lyricists and eventual actors in the video were Curry, Evan Mintz '11,  and soccer players Mauricio Sims’11, Charlie Reiter ’10, Mark Millard ’12, and Yannick Pilgrim ’11.

They dreamed of turning the song into a music video, but had neither the experience nor the time to engineer its creation. So they called on Austin Bell ’10, producer of the Union Board’s “The Davidson Show.” Bell responded enthusiastically, and spent a long night with the group recording the tune and lyrics. They filmed the video sequences in Vail Commons during the next couple of days, achieving a tight mix between the audio and video by playing the audio track on the set so the actors could create precise voiceovers.

“I Love Commons” was premiered Monday evening, May 4, to an appreciative audience of about 700 students in Duke Family Performance Hall during the awards night production of “The Davidson Show.” The gala evening featured highlights of the 20 episodes of the show produced this year, awards for actors and sketches, musical interludes by the college’s a cappella groups, stepping by the Shades of Brown dance troupe, and comedy juggling by The Great Fettucini.

“I Love Commons” was posted to YouTube earlier this week, and registered about 27,000 hits in its first 48 hours. It was also featured as “Stephen Curry’s song” by ESPN.com and as the Must-See Video on si.com. Bell is publishing the audio and video as downloadable files at the show’s home page, and has also published it to the Facebook site for the Class of 2013.

“It’s already exceeded our expectations in terms of reach,” said Bell. He credited the appeal of the song to the universal experience of Commons for everyone from first year students to alumni.

Rossiter said the positive sentiment expressed for Commons in the video is real. “The Commons food is great, but it’s the atmosphere that’s special,” he said. “It’s an escape from schoolwork. When you walk down the stairs and spot your friends, and the staff and servers are smiling, it lifts your spirits every time. We have some really fun big dinners there.”

Bell said “I Love Commons” provided a strong conclusion to a strong third season of “The Davidson Show.” The weekly production has benefitted from increased involvement by a growing number of students as writers, actors, producers and editors. The initiative is sponsored by the Union Board and this year has secured studio and production space in the bottom of the Outpost building. Each new episode of the show has premiered on Monday nights at 10 p.m. in the Alvarez College Union 900 Room.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,800 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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Posted By: Bill Giduz