User:Realet

Hi, I'm Tom Reale. You may remember me from such intriguing and outstanding Wikis as Wikipedia and CHNWiki.

My first RPI hockey game I ever attended was on November 20, 1982. I don't remember it at all, I was about five months old at the time. I'm told there is a picture of me at 2 1/2 two seasons later on George Servinis' shoulders when the team returned from Detroit with the national title.

I attended the Institute from 2000 to 2004 and was a trumpet for the most part. My membership in Lambda Chi Alpha often saw me sitting in Section 22 rather than on the stage at hockey games but I was always game for road trips and football games. The year after I graduated I filled in on bass drum on occasion, and on one sad night tried to roll the snare drum for the anthems and failed miserably.

I was also the one who made wearing a hard hat cool again - this was apparently in vogue in the 1980s but died out prior to around 2002 or so when I bought mine and slapped a bullet on it. However, I did not invent the hard hat salute. My hard hat, the original, was often used as a percussion instrument for 033 - El Cumbanchero, always while still on my head.

My other claim to fame was as the first Commanding Officer of the Red Army, which came into existence at the 2003 Big Red Freakout! as an informal name for Section 22 - the words "Red Army" were scrawled on a giant white bedsheet and glued to the railing. From there, various unnamed elements of the band picked up on the communist motif and the concept was eventually co-opted a few years later into the Union's attempt to stir student pride. I have mixed feelings about the Red Army's current mission and purpose.

I am still scheduled to have Sarah Toner's children, although I am currently living in St. Cloud, MN covering the St. Cloud State Huskies (can't spell sucks without SCSU, aka one-and-done university) for USCHO.