Doug Sprankling '10, who is from Davis, California, is a member of the Princeton University Band, which was founded in 1919 and is famous for its lively, fun-loving approach to sparking University spirit at football games. It has 50-plus regular members who "scramble" into creative formations, making music and raising laughs while cheering on the Tigers.

 

Sprankling plays the trumpet with the band and has performed at many Princeton football games, but a favorite memory is the win over Yale his freshman year. "We came back from a huge deficit to clinch the win and celebrated with a bonfire on campus," he says. Sanctioned by the University, the bonfire is lit whenever Princeton defeats both Harvard and Yale in the same football season.

 

The band is just one of Sprankling's extracurricular activities. He is on the Forbes College Council, where he represents his fellow students at the residential college and organizes events such as study breaks and the annual Casino Night. He also writes the newsletter for Forbes. In yet another capacity at his residential college, he helps to organize and captain Forbes intramural sports teams. One of the sports is broomball, which he describes as "playing hockey on ice in your sneakers, using a plastic stick with a broom-like base to hit the ball into the opposing team's goal."

 

Drawn to Princeton's liberal arts curriculum, Sprankling came to Princeton thinking he would major in either philosophy or English. He has since decided on English, possibly focusing on creative writing. One of his passions is 20th-century fiction, and an academic highlight so far has been taking a class taught by the novelist Susanna Moore.

 

"I traveled all around the country looking at liberal arts colleges," he says. "When I got to Princeton I thought it had a fantastic campus and all the people I talked to were impressive."

 

Now, Sprankling is ready to help other incoming students get the most out of Princeton. He has trained as an Outdoor Action leader and is eager to take his own group of students on a nature trek — maybe to the Appalachian Trail where he went as a freshman — to enjoy an orientation experience that for him was simply "amazing."