What was it like being Student Body President During Final Four?

2005-2006 Student Body President Dale Van Wagner poses at a Mason basketball game with other fans. (Broadside Photo Archives)
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UPDATED 5:15 p.m.

Dale Van Wagner first decided to come to Mason when he saw the basketball team go to the NCAA tournament in 2001. He had visited the campus the year before, but was really influenced by their success in sports.

“I figured, at least I’ll have someone to root for,” Van Wagner said.

Four years later, Van Wagner got to see his team go to the Final Four from the unique viewpoint of the Student Body President. Van Wagner felt chance played a large role in getting Mason to the Final Four.

“We got so lucky about a hundred times,” Van Wagner said.

All the experts didn’t think Mason even had a chance to get in the NCAA tournament, period, much less do well in it. Joe Lunardi, an expert of brackets on CNN, counted Mason among the 8 teams he did not expect to make the tournament, as number 8.

When Mason, seeded 11th, was set to play 6th-seeded Michigan State, Van Wagner was called to serve on the university’s “Basketball Hooplah Committee,” designed to figure out how Mason would handle the press and logistics of being in the NCAA tournament.

“We got really lucky that our schedule was the Friday-Sunday schedule in Dayton, Ohio, which was driveable,” Van Wagner said. “Both of our games ended up being Friday-Sunday, so people could go to the game and not miss two days of work or school. That’s huge in terms of getting fans there.”

Van Wagner’s appearance in Dayton proved memorableas the president, he managed to finagle front row seats for him and a friend. All the other students were up in a section with bad lighting, proving impossible for TV cameras to get good shots.

“We were the only two Mason students that the cameras could get any decent shots of,” Van Wagner said. “I was on TV probably four or five times in the Michigan state and UNC games.”

For Van Wagner, the win against Michigan State was the most important in the
tournament, as it justified the trip to Dayton.

“You just feel so justified,” Van Wagner said. “All the Michigan state fans there were so cocky and overconfident, and then we beat them.”

When Mason made it to the Sweet Sixteen, the craziness on campus began.

“On our way back from Dayton after the first weekend’s wins, we get a call from a friend on campus, saying that everyone was going to the Patriot Center,” Van
Wagner said. “It was like a zombie movie. There were 3000 or 4000 people that showed up at the Patriot Center just to have this crazy pep rally at 11 on a Sunday night.”

As Mason’s next game was at the Verizon Center in DC, fans were able to arrive via public transportation.

“No one said anything about Mason being in the DC bracket the week before, because we were supposed to lose,” Van Wagner said. “None of the analysts even mentioned that Mason was 20 miles from the regional tourney.”

Van Wagner thinks Mason’s dramatic win over University of Connecticut in overtime had to do with Mason’s near home court advantage. He estimates that the audience was 70 percent Mason fans.

“Everyone assumed we were going to lose,” Van Wagner said. “Even George Mason fans were just like, we can’t beat this team. There were five first draft NBA picks on the team. They were taller than us in every single position and more talented than us.”

The hooplah commitee had planned a pep rally for the weekend, whether Mason won or lost to Wichita State or UConn.

“There were probably 8,000 fans at the “congratulations- you’re-now-changing-the-landscape-of-theuniversity” pep rally after the UConn game,” Van Wagner said. “Everyone crowded down as close to the seats as they could get, no one was in their seats.”

In the week leading up to the Final Four, the Fairfax campus became the focus of national attention. A huge number of media groups arrived on campus to interview students. On Wednesday of that week, while Van Wagner was moderating a Student Government debate in the Johnson Center atrium during lunch, Coach Larranaga, trailed by CBS sports video cameras, walked right up on stage and led an impromptu pep rally.

“My little student government debate was getting interrupted because CBS Sports Line is doing a Day in the Life with Coach Larranga,” Van Wagner said. “The abnormal was normal.”

In national surveys, every single state besides Louisiana, California and Florida said they were rooting for George Mason in the Final Four.

“Everyone was rooting for George Mason,” Van Wagner said. “People you hadn’t talked to in months were friending you on facebook and messaging you and saying “I just saw you went to George Mason - that’s amazing!”

Despite Mason’s loss to Florida in Indianapolis, Van Wagner felt the run was historic.
“A lot of people will tell you that it’s better that we lost because it saved them failing the semester,” Van Wagner said. “For people that were really involved in athletics, it just consumed us for those three weeks in the middle of spring semester. I mean, who wants to go to class when we made the Final Four?”

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The above piece was published in Mason Nation: Four Years After Final Four, a magazine released this April documenting and analyzing the university's development since the Patriots' historic run in 2006, aiming to shed light on what's connected to the Cinderella story--and additionally, what's not.

Led by senior history major and Student Media veteran Rachael Dickson, the magazine's other topics include changes in men's basketball to effects on other athletics, and from player profiles of the Final Four team to the rise of the Chesapeake residential neighborhood. Gunston and the pep band also receive shout-outs.