Brady Talbert
Staff Writer
The Troy University Student Government Association (SGA) is encouraging Trojan fans to replace “Fight! Fight! Fight!” with “Fight like hell!” in the school’s fight song, “Trojans One and All.”
During a Sept. 10 senate meeting, the SGA voted to pass Resolution 2019-008, which states:
“‘Trojans One and All’ currently sounds aggressive, but could be slightly modified to enhance the mood and spirit among Trojans and fans (making it more aggressive).”
Senator Carter Ray, a senior geomatics major from Troy, proposed the modification to the senate after noticing a divide between the written lyrics and what he grew up hearing.
“When I learned the original document today reads ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ it threw me off guard,” Ray said. “Hearing a lot of people all together say that language, ‘Fight like hell!,’ in a fight song, it just sounds more aggressive.”
“In my opinion, it draws more enthusiasm when it’s said like that,” Ray said. “It also stirs up more Trojan pride, and that’s what we want at our pep rallies, football games.”
A vast majority of the senate voted in agreement to the alternation, which is not an official change but rather an encouragement to the student body. Senators who voted in disapproval to the modification tussled with moral dilemmas and how the alteration may confuse fans.
“I believe that if we’re going to make a change such as this, that we should just go ahead create a bill for it,” Senator Camryn May, a senior hospitality management major from Panama City, Florida, said. “I just think that at a game it would be confusing for half of the student body to be chanting ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!,’ and the other half to be chanting ‘Fight Like hell!.’”
“I think we need to be unified, and it needs to sound organized,” May said. I believe that some people would think that because we are in the Bible belt, the deep South, that it should stay ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!,’ just to be clean and just to have a good representation of Troy.”
Losing the wholesomeness of the traditional fight song is a concern for Hunter Lawrence, a sophomore hospitality major from Hoover. Lawrence plays the alto saxophone in the university’s marching band, the Sound of the South.
“Some parents aren’t really OK with this kind of language,” Lawrence said. “’Fight like hell!’ it’s great, a lot of other universities use that motive, but I feel like that with our fan base and just who it talks to, we should keep it traditional, based on the parents and the kids that come to our football games.”
Lawrence was not aware of the proposed resolution until it was voted on.
“Not being notified of this is a little like weird, because I mean as a band, we sing it and we promote the fight song every time we score. We sing ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!,’ and now that they’re trying to change it, and we still don’t know about it. It’s different, and I don’t really like it.”
While the modification is not an official rewrite of the original lyrics, talk of a formal change can be heard in the senate.
“In the near future we may do a resolution that proposes a formal change to the document,” Ray stated, which would not be the first time the text was revised.
The fight song has been altered before. Following the Board of Trustees April of 2004 decision change the school’s name from Troy State University to Troy University, the fight song was revised to read “cheers to T-R-O-Y” rather than “cheers to old Troy State.”
Ray said he wants to meet with large organizations on campus to get the word out about the new lyrics, in addition to publishing the modification on social media to encourage fans to say “Fight like hell!”
