“The sights and sounds of summer are approaching, and with them come hot, long days and more lacrosse jersey-clad people than you could have possibly known existed. The warm spring air has lazily descended on our lovely campus, and accompanying this seasonal change is my favorite day of the spring semester. Not only is it my favorite day, it is also one of the great traditions at this university: the opening of the outdoor pool on Maryland Day. It is a glorious day, when students from across the campus and beyond come to unwind around and in the shimmering pool.

It is almost as if students hear a voice calling their names, telling them to drop everything and come bask by the chlorinated water. Students abandon their books, researchers leave their lab coats and goggles in the lab, athletes ditch their pads and sticks, and homework assignments are brought to be completed at the pool on North Campus at the Eppley Recreation Center.

Seeing the pool on a spring day is a pretty amazing sight. At any given moment you can see people doing crazy acrobatics on the diving board, more girls in bikinis than Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition and me throwing down dunks at the pool basketball hoop on unsuspecting defenders. There is music pumping from the speakers as friends reunite in the water, new friends are made and crushes develop. The pool reaches capacity and, soon enough, a line forms. The unlucky outsiders are left with the same feeling of injustice as the Butabi brothers had while getting rejected from nightclub after nightclub in A Night at the Roxbury.”

Since the University of Maryland is a cold climate most of the year the chance to lay by the pool must be very exciting for the college students.  This tradition must symbolize the start of summer and more outdoor activities.  It is also clearly a social activity that brings people together who might not have mingled together otherwise.  Perhaps this is a chance to spark new love or create new friends with a different mix of people.

This article was written by Cory Kutcher and can be found in the link below:

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinion/opening-day-a-wet-and-wild-tradition-1.2210715