By: Rebecca Offenkrantz

The name, Jordan Baird, probably doesn’t sound very familiar to you. The junior, majoring in Vocal Performance, transferred to Mason in the Fall of 2011.

Baird was one of three walk-ons for our men’s basketball team, but, while he’s not been on the court much yet — he has spent a lot of time on stage singing.

Baird tried out for American Idol in 2009 at the Orlando auditions. He made it to the top 40 singers at that specific audition but was never on camera; he subsequently got cut in the next round.

But he didn’t give up. When Simon Cowell started his new show X-Factor, Baird auditioned and made it to the top 80 participants at the Seattle tryouts before getting cut.

Baird was asked to sing the National Anthem at the George Mason University’s Homecoming game versus Old Dominion University on Saturday, February 4th. Facebook and Twitter exploded following his performance, Washington Post reporter Steven Goff tweeted:

Goff goes as far as to call Baird’s performance ‘flawless’ in the above tweet. ‘This video shows Jordan performing at the Homecoming game.

When asked if he had any plans to compete on any other show, Baird replied, “I think I might be finished with Idol, but I might do X-Factor again. The one I am really looking into is The Voice… after basketball is over, whenever that may be.”