A man with shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair appeared on stage wearing a neon pink bra and a mermaid tail. He sat down on young men who were covered in a sheet on stage at Hill Auditorium on Feb. 18, 2015. He and the rest of the Michigan Men’s Rowing team proceeded to perform along to the songs and story of The Little Mermaid. Some teammates wore shiny green outfits to simulate seaweed, others all in blue outfits as if they were the sea. One teammate dressed as Prince Eric in a rowing jacket, and to end their skit, like the movie, “Eric” and “Ariel” kissed on stage. The audience roared as the Michigan Men’s Rowing team exited the stage.

All of this excitement and more occurs at the annual Mock Rock event run by student-athletes at the University of Michigan. At Mock Rock, different sports teams at the university perform skits along to music at Hill Auditorium. The money that was raised from ticket sales for this event got donated to the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti YMCA to support financial assistance for after-school sports and exercise programs.

This year, 20 athletic teams, including Athletic Training and Marching Band, participated in 13 live performances which the host Aaron Ward, a University of Michigan and NHL hockey player, introduced the teams for. His quick-witted humor made the crowd laugh in between performances.

As the show came to an end it was time for the judges to vote for the best team; this year, the judges were the audience. Everyone with a cell phone could text their preferred performance to Mock Rock Voting.

As the votes came in, representatives from each team made their way to the front of the stage. Ward announced the winner starting in third place to first place.

In third place was Field Hockey with a powerful performance of “Heroes” by Alesso along with teammates dancing in the background and a slideshow projected of all of their heroes including parents, pets and military veterans.

Second place winners were Men’s and Women’s Track & Field/Cross Country teams who performed an impressive skit where they flipped through “channels” such as Spongebob, The Office and Hunger Games. While being on each channel, team members danced well to the song or movie’s theme song.

Michigan Men’s Rowing took first place, with their skit: The Little Mermaid. Their back-to-back first place performances seemed to arouse the crowd. As the representatives for Men’s Rowing took the plaque, the section which the rowers sat  went crazy with shouting and cheers as Mock Rock 2015 concluded.