On Sept. 13, 2007 the Maryland Terrapins crowd showed off their school colors on national television.

Well, actually that night the students chose to sport only one of their colors.

There was no white, red, or gold in the crowd – only black. That night the crowd turned into a blackout.

For those who do not know, a blackout is when the entire crowd, or a large portion of it, wears a black T-shirt. The visual effect is a massive black wall surrounding the field.

One NIU fan, Ryne Moen, was inspired so much by what he saw that night that it got him thinking.

“I was watching the Maryland versus West Virginia game and [the blackout] looked ridiculously great,” the senior political science major said. “I started thinking, why don’t we do something like that.”

So Moen started to eyeball NIU’s 101 Homecoming. As co-presidnet of the NIU fan group, the Red Riot, he began to make a similar push like the Red Army of Maryland. A push for a blackout at Homecoming.

Red Riot co-president Justin Kuryliw was given the task of developing the blackout from a dream to a reality the past two weeks.

“The idea of blackout started so quickly,” the sophomore business major said. “It started as a rumor and then it just happened.”

The 19-year old started by approaching local businesses. Kuryliw was seeking these businesses to sponsor a black T-shirt to be handed out at the game. Due to time constraints though, Kuryliw wasn’t able to get much support.

“Actually a lot of businesses wanted to get more involved if they had more than two weeks,” the DeKalb native said. “However, Lundeen’s has 750 shirts they are giving out this week.”

Without free T-shirts to hand out to students, Kuryliw and the Red Riot aimed to create a buzz around campus. The goal – have students wear their own black T-shirts for the blackout.

Kuryliw’s first step was to create a Facebook group. As of today, the “Blackout the NIU homecoming game!” group has over 1,500 members. The sophomore’s next move was to post hundreds of flyers around campus. Finally, Kuryliw started using word of mouth to spread the idea.

The sophomore, and the Red Riot, will continue this week to push for the blackout with their goal in mind: Create a visual intimidation while, at the same time, building a community of fans.

“If everyone wears black, well that’s just a hard thing to do,” Kuryliw said. “It’s really cool to think everyone cares enough to wear black.”

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