As we watch history unfold in this new era of social distancing and quarantining from the world around us, it is so important, now more than ever, to say home and stay safe to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Staying home and being isolated from friends and family can bring on a wave of different emotions.
While in isolation, the average sports fan is losing steam for things to do while they sit around and patiently wait for sports to make their comeback. Marist Athletics took this into consideration. With this consideration, they did the unthinkable. Hot off the presses of your parent’s printer, the Marist Athletics Activity Book was born. In the biggest off-the-bench performance of the season, Marist fans are no longer bored at home with nothing to do. Now they can smile and remember their favorite Marist athletes and games from the 2019-2020 school year as they flip through pages, waiting for campus and athletics to open up again.
Page by page, let’s break down the official Marist Activity Book.
SPOILER ALERT: The remainder of this article contains spoilers for the Marist Activity Book. Solved puzzles are featured in this piece. If you would like to work on the activity book yourself, make sure to complete it first before reading any further.
Starting in the leadoff position, Frankie the Fox has his typical, cheerful expression with his hand in the air. Looking at the image alone would get any Marist fan excited to flip to the next page and see what there is to uncover.
Batting second is page two, where fans are greeted by the same image. But, what’s that?! A pinch hitter! This time there is the opportunity to color it in. The author’s imagination and creativity is allowed to shine through. Featured her is a lifelike rendition of Frankie, created with the use of crayons, markers, and colored pencils.
The next page features a “spot the difference” game, featuring the athlete weight room in the newly renovated McCann Center. There are four items featured in the top photo that have either disappeared completely, or changed colors in the second photo. A close eye is necessary for completing this page, due to the amount of equipment featured in the new gym. Once you solve the puzzle though, the viewer will walk away almost completely memorizing the layout of the Red Foxes favorite workout space.
Onto page three, where Marist fans get to color in more blank canvases. The top half of the page says “Go Red Foxes” with the iconic logo featuring the most fearsome mascot in the entire MAAC Conference. Below that is a similar logo, the traditional “Marist,” written across all of the team’s jerseys.
Because coloring books are all about creative liberties, it was only right for us to participate as well. We chose to color in our beloved Marist logo with a new color scheme, just to see what it looks like. It’s safe to say that we much rather prefer red.
Page four is batting clean up, ready to come in clutch with a Red Fox crossword puzzle, where the clues are facts about various athletes on the 23 teams. Fans can broaden their Marist Athletics knowledge, and learn something about the athletes who play on teams they might not follow. This is personally, my favorite page in the book.
The next prospect is another “Spot the Difference” game, featuring our stellar women’s basketball team. These four differences are a bit easier to find. Additionally, fans get to see the Red Fox bench fired up and excited, something there was no shortage of this season. The image alone will put a smile on any fan’s face, differences or not. Luckily, here we get to see it twice.
Frankie returns for page six: a maze to McCann arena. With the help of a pen, Frankie will be at the basketball game as quickly as possible, cheering on his favorite team. The maze features images of various Marist buildings, like the James A. Cannavino Library, and Hancock Center. Frankie has the right mind set here because the only way he is going to find a parking spot on game day is by starting past the Hancock Center.
The last of the coloring sheets follows suit, with images of a Marist branded basketball along with an ESPN microphone, and a stunning overhead shot of Tenney Stadium. We went back to traditional colors for our basketball and microphone, and decided it was best to leave Tenney untouched. It looks great the way it is, but even better with our teams playing on it.
After sticking to the traditional orange and black for the basketball, this pushed me into another mindless, but equally as important quarantine task. The blank slate of the coloring pages prompted questions, so I went looking to Twitter, for answers…
…and answers is what I got.
On deck after the coloring pages is a word search, featuring the buildings on Marist’s campus. Fans have to search through scrambled letters to find the building names, oriented vertically, horizontally, and backwards. This page is also one of the best in the activity book, because who doesn’t love a good word search?
Rounding out the roster of pages, batting ninth, the final “spot the difference” puzzle. This time, the photo is of the front of the new McCann center. Photographed at a simpler time. With snow on the ground, it had just opened its doors. This one is the easiest of the four images in our own opinion, because the objects stand out against the bright background. Easy out. Talk about the nine hitter huh?
COVID-19 is something to be taken seriously and social distancing has become massively important to helping to stop the spread. If you feel that you’re lacking activities to occupy yourself during social distancing, well look no further! Now you can work your way through fun coloring book, published to bring some sunshine into a cloudy time, and give fans and students alike something to do and brighten up their days. If you can finish the coloring book, you can write a play-by-play about your experience, or even take a Twitter poll based on the coloring book! The opportunities here are endless. While there is no set time table for anything to return, this definitely helps us get our fix of Marist athletics.
Edited by Lily Caffrey-Levine