The Wisconsin Badgers have a tradition unlike any other, a football atmosphere going into the fourth quarter that is absolute madness. It's called "Jump Around" and even the phrase now brings to mind Wisconsin to college football fans more than it does the artist who wrote the song that caused the madness, House of Pain. 80,000 people literally jumping all at the same time creates an atmosphere and energy, unlike any other stadium.
You know it's about to go wild when you hear those horns over the loudspeakers. "Buurrr, Burrr, Burrr...." The crowd begins to cheer, everyone stands up, and the moment arrives when the beat drops and Camp Randall descends into chaos.
The story behind the best tradition in all of college football, Wisconsin's Jump Around
It's amazing, but why is it "a thing? " Why does Wisconsin even do it? Especially because House of Pain, and specifically Everlast, the person who wrote the song, was a Los Angeles group. Well, the story goes back to an injured tight end who was a marketing intern, a guy named Kevin Kluender, who was the assistant marketing director for Wisconsin athletics, and even Drew Brees.
It started with Ryan Sondrup, a tight end on the Wisconsin football team who was also a marketing major and intern for the athletics department. He was injured for part of the season and wanted to come up with some ideas to get the players fired up during the game. Kluender told him to come up with some song ideas on a playlist with no further promises.
According to a YouTube documentary on the tradition, Sondrup went to a local bar called Wandos with some of his teammates and told them, "We get to choose songs for the stadium!" They came up with a handful of good ideas. One of their favorites and a song they put at the top of the list was "Jump Around," written in 1992 but still popular in 1998.
That next game, Drew Brees of Purdue was throwing all over the Badgers, but the score stayed close. At the end of the third quarter, Wisconsin got an interception, and the momentum was shifting. Kluender said the song "Jump Around" came to mind, and the student section went crazy. As they say, the rest is history.
It became a staple at the Wisconsin games, so much so that once, in 2003, the administrators decided not to do it for one game due to construction at the arena and not sure if it could handle thousands of fans jumping up and down. The fans were irate, demanding it return, they consulted an engineer to determine if fans could jump around, the engineer said it would be fine, and the tradition has never left and it is one of the greats traditions in all of college football.
If you want to watch the YouTube documentary about the origins of Jump Around, watch it below. It's only about six minutes long and worth the journey. You can even hear from Everlast of House of Pain about his thoughts on it all.
Oh, and the Badgers won that game against Drew Brees and Purdue on October 10, 1998, 31-24 as the final score.