LOGAN, Utah -- A commercial played across the nation before the US Men's National team went to Brazil to play in the World Cup, and for some Utah sports fans, the chant in the commercial hits close to home.
Utah State University's director of men's basketball Jesse Parker spoke about the familiar chant.
"Wow, that's us,” he said. “That's Utah State. You know, you expect somebody from Logan or somebody from our campus to be kind of behind that and to see it on a world stage, it's awesome to know that we at least played a small part in getting that going.”
The self-proclaimed "Front Row Crew" of Utah State started the chant about 4 years ago during men's basketball games. Though it's hard to pinpoint where it started, they say they got the idea from the Navy.
Jake Christofferson is among those in the Front Row Crew, and he spoke about the chant’s origins.
"We come hours before the game to wait, so we had time to kill,” he said. “We wanted to try something new, so we were up YouTubing different videos and just trying to get some different ideas and we saw this one and we thought it was pretty cool.”
It's hard for a University in a small town to get noticed - but the "I Believe" chant put USU on the map.
"This year heading into the new conference, we heard it a lot,” Parker said. “People would be like, 'Oh, we don't know much about you guys, but we know that your fans are crazy and that you guys kind of started the I Believe thing.’”
"Whenever that chant gets going and crazy, I feel like Mel Gibson in ‘Braveheart.’ I'm ready to cut people's heads off and yell, ‘Freedom,’" USU fan Bill Sproat said.
"The emotion and energy that runs through when they are doing it, you can help but get excited," former USU men's basketball player Sean Harris commented.
The US Men's national team will take on Portugal this coming Sunday. See the YouTube videos below for the ESPN commercial and a clip of USU fans performing the chant.
