{"id":218283,"date":"2022-06-01T10:10:12","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T14:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/?p=218283"},"modified":"2022-06-01T10:52:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T14:52:18","slug":"rocky-stands-out-in-the-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2022\/06\/01\/rocky-stands-out-in-the-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Stands Out in the Crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kyle Cashin was pretty sure the footwear he chose to wear to Commencement would turn heads. Bright yellow with giant talons, his shoes stood out in the crowd among the thousands of Montclair State University graduates. <\/p>\n<p>What he didn\u2019t count on was the faculty and students who came up to him to say, \u201cThank you for your service.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Cashin was among the members of the spirited Team Rocky who turn up at about 300 different college and athletic events \u2013 and who keep their identities secret until Commencement, when by tradition the graduating seniors wear Rocky\u2019s shoes to make the \u201cbig reveal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cashin kept a running <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kjcashin\/status\/1527714466787479555?s=21&#038;t=qbLmZPd51VPCX2RDZjj3YQ\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter thread<\/a> during the Commencement ceremonies on May 20 to record reactions as he walked past tailgate parties in the stadium parking lot pre-ceremony and as the music swelled when entering the giant MetLife.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMay I ask why you decided to wear those?\u201d asked a fellow graduate unaware of the Rocky tradition. \u201dThey didn\u2019t know why I was wearing the feet,\u201d Cashin recalls, laughing. \u201cThey just thought I was wearing shoes.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Cashin launched a Facebook album, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/media\/set\/?set=a.2617941128293888&#038;type=3\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Rocky &#038; Me<\/a>, where he has posted more than 1,000 photos of all the \u201ctimes I was Rocky and you had no idea,\u201d tagging the friends who posed with him on numerous occasions during their college days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople made assumptions I was Rocky since I was super involved on campus, and I would say, \u2018totally not.\u2019 Then at Commencement,  people were like, \u2018oh my, you&#8217;re wearing the feet. I knew it all along. You told me I was wrong.\u2019 And I&#8217;m like, \u2018yeah, well, that\u2019s how it works.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cashin will be filling those big shoes one last time on June 3 at the Convocation ceremony for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, where he will receive a degree in History. <\/p>\n<p>Congratulations \u2013 and thank you for your service \u2013 to all the Team Rocky graduates: Sarah Waffenfeld, Nick Parente, Rachel Sandor and Sean Risch (who made his own big reveal on the television series <em>The College Tour<\/em>, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video and other channels).<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Video: The College Tour: Embrace Our Red Hawk Spirit\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q9_kCHUd2Jc?feature=oembed\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen style=\"width: 500px; height: 281px; border: 0px solid #000;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Story by Staff Writer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=lehrenma\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Marilyn Joyce Lehren<\/a>. Photos by University Photographer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=petersm\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Peters<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You May Also Like:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2022\/05\/21\/class-of-2022-ready-to-make-the-world-a-better-place\/\">Class of 2022: Ready to Make the World a Better Place<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/2022\/05\/11\/nursing-grads-rock-the-today-show\/\">Nursing Grads Rock The Today Show:<\/a> Red Hawks shine during surprise-filled live Pinning Ceremony at Rockefeller Center<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Q9_kCHUd2Jc\">The College Tour: Embrace Our Red Hawk Spirit<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n\/\/ Output tags as a list for Google Analytics custom dimension\nwindow.MSU_TagList = [];\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Revealing the University mascot\u2019s identity is always a memorable graduation moment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":218284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage-news","category-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218283"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218288,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218283\/revisions\/218288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}