As the school year begins, many college freshmen across the country are trying to find a slice of home in their new dorms. For a group of freshmen at Arizona State University, the answer was simple — find fellow fans of TODAY and rally to show their support for the show.
Upperclassmen Torunn Sinclair and Kari Osep started the TODAY craze on Sinclair's floor of ASU's Taylor Place residence hall three weeks ago, covering the halls with show-themed decor in preparation for TODAY's Fan Appreciation Week.
But it was the Twitter hashtag #SunDevilsHeartTODAY that caught the eye of several TODAY anchors as well as NBC 12 in Phoenix, as the girls tweeted photos and videos of their dorm decked out in TODAY decor.
Sinclair, a Resident Attendant in Taylor Place, said she thinks the girls on her floor have been able to foster a strong sense of community out of their mutual love of TODAY.
"I'm friends with a couple of the residents on Facebook, and it's cool to see some of their statuses saying things like, 'we haven't even lived here for two weeks and we're already on TV!'," Sinclair said.
The dorm consists primarily of students enrolled in ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, so many were familiar with TODAY, but Sinclair said those who weren't have been catching on by osmosis.
Sinclair, however, has been a lifelong fan.
"I've been watching the show for a really, really long time," Sinclair said. "My parents made me watch the TODAY show instead of watching cartoons in the morning and I absolutely loved it."