Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: BoSCA-Steve Brockelbank AD at Ferris State University "The Impact of Institutional Alignment and Leveraging a National Championship"

Transcript

BONUS: BoSCA-Steve Brockelbank AD at Ferris State University "The Impact of Institutional Alignment and Leveraging a National Championship" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:01
  It's bonus time. Here we go continuing our Bosca
• 0:04
  business of small College Athletics convention bonus
• 0:07
  series here over the next few weeks.
• 0:09
  Got another, just another topic that I thought would be
• 0:12
  interesting. We've got Steve Brockelbank,
• 0:15
  he's the athletic director of at Ferris State University.
• 0:18
  They have won the Division 2 football national championships
• 0:22
  in 2122 and 24 and he talks about the impact of
• 0:27
  institutional alignment and leveraging a national
• 0:29
  championship. So you may not necessarily be in
• 0:32
  the area of winning a national championship for football or
• 0:35
  basketball, etc. But he brings up a lot of topics
• 0:38
  that I thought our track coaches out here from high school to
• 0:41
  college might be able to consider for conference
• 0:45
  championships, your own national championship, state titles.
• 0:48
  There's a lot of institutional alignment as well as community
• 0:52
  engagement that I thought we just might have some value here
• 0:55
  for our track coaches. So help me welcome from the
• 0:57
  Business of Small College Athletics convention, Mr. Steve
• 1:00
  Brockelbank, athletic director of Ferris State University.
• 1:04
  All right, thank you. 4:00 Hang in there with me.
• 1:08
  Hang in there with me. You can do it.
• 1:10
  I'm looking up here. I guess they knew I was
• 1:12
  struggling too. So, so somebody left me a couple
• 1:16
  shots of fireballs. So perfect.
• 1:19
  No, it's good to be here. So thank you so much.
• 1:21
  And, and I do want to talk a little bit about what we've done
• 1:24
  at Ferris State in terms of taking advantage of what was a
• 1:27
  significant event for and I might get down.
• 1:30
  I can't stand being up here for our athletic department.
• 1:33
  And that was in this case, in the event I'm going to talk
• 1:36
  about was winning a football national championship.
• 1:39
  And, and for all of you, it might be a championship in a
• 1:43
  different sport. It might be another significant
• 1:45
  accomplishment that's happened in your department, in your
• 1:47
  athletic department. And how do you best leverage it
• 1:51
  to bring value to the institution, right.
• 1:53
  We talk about funding. We talk about funding for
• 1:56
  dollars. One of the ways that you can get
• 1:59
  more dollars is when you can show the university that you as
• 2:01
  an athletic department bring value and value beyond just your
• 2:05
  teams, value beyond just your department, value beyond the
• 2:09
  student athlete experience, but value for the the mission and
• 2:12
  vision of the institution. That's value, right?
• 2:15
  That's when presidents and board of trustees see value in
• 2:19
  athletics. And certainly we want the
• 2:20
  student athlete experience to be one of those things that we
• 2:23
  value. But the student athlete
• 2:25
  experience, how much of it is really based on winning, They're
• 2:29
  losing. And I argue that a lot of it's
• 2:31
  based on winning, they're losing, right?
• 2:33
  So when we talk about a great student athlete experience, it's
• 2:37
  usually happens from student athletes who come off with
• 2:39
  really good teams. When I do senior exit
• 2:41
  interviews, the senior exit interviews that are really poor
• 2:45
  in my experience as an AD, have typically been with student
• 2:48
  athletes who come from programs and teams that did not compete
• 2:51
  very well. And a student athlete
• 2:53
  experiences that are really positive usually come from
• 2:56
  student athletes who come off teams that have won at a really
• 2:59
  high level. When I talk to alumni, when they
• 3:02
  come back to campus, when they come to a golf out there or
• 3:04
  whatever it may be, they are typical student athletes that
• 3:07
  when they're at Ferris State-run a lot of games in whatever sport
• 3:11
  they participated in. OK, So there's value in winning
• 3:14
  and there's value in winning to make sure that you take
• 3:17
  advantage of those wins or that significant event because you
• 3:20
  have won and you work to help move forward the mission and
• 3:25
  vision of the university. And that requires institutional
• 3:28
  alignment. And I'm sharing this with you
• 3:30
  today because it took us three times to get it right.
• 3:33
  Not everybody's going to have three times or significant event
• 3:36
  three times to get it right. OK.
• 3:39
  So I hope there's some information in here that you go,
• 3:42
  OK, if we ever achieve X, whatever that is for you or your
• 3:45
  department, right? We're going to make sure that we
• 3:48
  do some of these things. And you may have some things as
• 3:50
  you listen to this presentation, you may say at the end, you
• 3:54
  really missed this opportunity, Steve.
• 3:55
  And I'd love to hear what that is.
• 3:57
  But I, I think we got it close to as good as we can get it.
• 4:00
  But there may be some things that you say, hey, we've done
• 4:04
  some pretty cool things and here's what we did with them.
• 4:06
  OK. So that's, that's really the
• 4:07
  intent of what I'm here to talk about.
• 4:10
  I just want to start out with #1 if you're going to accomplish a
• 4:13
  significant event, you got to make the event a great one.
• 4:15
  And that starts with preparation.
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  Because if you don't have a good event, it's hard to leverage the
• 4:20
  event, right? Win or lose, right?
• 4:22
  You have to make it a great event for everyone involved.
• 4:25
  For the alumni that travel down, for the board of trustees that
• 4:27
  choose to join you, right? For the faculty members that
• 4:30
  come down, for the parents that come down, you have to make the
• 4:33
  event a great event. And there's nothing magical with
• 4:36
  this list. This is just a list that we use
• 4:38
  and you have to be willing to prepare in advance and get
• 4:41
  institutional alignment. And what I mean by that, So once
• 4:44
  our football team, in this case, I'm just going to talk about
• 4:46
  football again, it could be a different sport for you.
• 4:48
  It could be a different event, it could be a different
• 4:50
  milestone or achievement. But I'm going to talk about
• 4:54
  football because that's the one that for us that we utilized.
• 4:57
  So every year our football team, we've been fortunate.
• 5:01
  They're pretty good. They get in the playoffs on an
• 5:03
  annual basis. Once they win the first playoff
• 5:06
  game, we gather the troops. And when I say troops, that's
• 5:10
  advancement, that's student affairs, that's admissions,
• 5:15
  that's university communications, that's athletic
• 5:18
  communications, that's game operations, that's the director
• 5:22
  of football operations. And then there are athletic
• 5:24
  administrators that need to be there.
• 5:26
  We gather and we start going through this list and we'll
• 5:28
  change it a little bit and tweak it and there might be a couple
• 5:31
  of things missing off there or things we don't need to
• 5:33
  necessarily cover, but we will start that process.
• 5:37
  Now, who's going to be the most resistant to that?
• 5:41
  The coach, because they're so damn superstitious, right?
• 5:45
  Oh, we can't, we can't, we can't start talking about that.
• 5:48
  Well, you don't have to talk about it.
• 5:49
  Just send your DFO over and we'll start talking about it,
• 5:52
  right? We'll keep you out of it and
• 5:53
  we'll only include you on a need to know basis, but we have to
• 5:58
  prepare for it, OK? We can't wait until the week of
• 6:01
  when we win a semi final game and go, oh boy, what are we
• 6:04
  doing, right? So we want to be prepared in
• 6:06
  advance. So you get nothing magical about
• 6:08
  this particular list. One of the things that I think
• 6:12
  we do, we did a good job of what we've done every year is on the
• 6:15
  back end as we're preparing, we're building a website for the
• 6:18
  event. So the moment we win that semi
• 6:21
  final game, we're going live, right?
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  I mean, within minutes, that thing is turned on and ready to
• 6:28
  go and it's got all the information for everyone that
• 6:31
  you might need to know. Also at the bottom of this,
• 6:33
  because I couldn't, I was trying to copy the whole thing and I
• 6:36
  couldn't do it. So but at the bottom of it, we
• 6:38
  also have an admission piece. Click here to become a bulldog,
• 6:43
  right. So when you go on and you want
• 6:44
  to find out about the national championship game, if you're a
• 6:46
  prospective student, right, you can go ahead and get right to
• 6:49
  the admissions page. We also have a donor piece on
• 6:51
  there and so on and so forth. But this is part of the
• 6:54
  preparation, right? So we don't wait until the game.
• 6:57
  And on Sunday we're going to the national championship saying,
• 7:00
  hey, we got to get that website Bill.
• 7:01
  People are asking for information like you, you have
• 7:04
  to get on it. So it's ready to go live.
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  The minute that that clock ticks 0 and you know you're going
• 7:10
  boom, that thing is live and and ready to go.
• 7:13
  And not that you won't make some minutes for changes as you get
• 7:15
  more information during the week, but in general, it's up
• 7:19
  and it's ready to go. And that's really, really
• 7:21
  important for folks. Again, if you want to leverage
• 7:24
  an event, at some point you have to create a great event.
• 7:28
  And that goes beyond just winning the game.
• 7:31
  OK, everyone down there has to say, man, that was a great
• 7:33
  experience. I had so much fun when I went
• 7:36
  down there with that football team to watch them play.
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  Whether they're an alumni, whether they're a donor, whether
• 7:39
  they're a board of trustee member, whether they're a
• 7:41
  foundation member, it doesn't matter.
• 7:42
  They have to have a great experience.
• 7:46
  Starts by way that helps, right? In this case, for us, it's
• 7:50
  football. But again, it can be any of any
• 7:53
  event for you that for the university or for your
• 7:55
  department is significant. It's important.
• 7:58
  It's something that you can take and get people excited about the
• 8:02
  university because something happened in your athletic
• 8:05
  department that was a significant achievement or
• 8:08
  milestone for yourself. Like what is that?
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  In this case for us it was football and football is
• 8:12
  certainly one of the one of the bigger ones, right?
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  It's certainly a great opportunity to take advantage
• 8:16
  of, but as I mentioned, we've won three of these in the last
• 8:20
  four years. The first time we did a very,
• 8:24
  I'd say average job. And I'm looking at Jake as Jake
• 8:27
  is with us at Ferris and awesome, dude, love them.
• 8:30
  But first, that was our first time, right?
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  And so you get caught up in the moment, right?
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  You're like, Oh my God, we won a national championship and and
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  you're just so caught up in everything and you're so busy
• 8:40
  and there's so much going on. And then all of a sudden you get
• 8:43
  home and it's a holiday break and you get back.
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  You're like, well, what do we do now?
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  Like we just won a national championship, Like who should
• 8:48
  probably do something, right? We should probably do something.
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  How can we get people excited and let this national
• 8:54
  championship, let it continue to carry on, right?
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  And spread the message, whatever the message is for the
• 8:59
  university, How can we take that game, that event and spread the
• 9:03
  university mission and vision and message?
• 9:06
  One of the things that we also do in preparation is we brand
• 9:10
  it. So we work with Affinity
• 9:12
  Licensing in late November and start creating the brand, the
• 9:17
  logo that we're going to use. If we win the game, that's done.
• 9:23
  So we, when we win the game, when that game is done, now we
• 9:27
  could lose the game and then we're, well, we're probably not
• 9:28
  doing anything with that logo, right?
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  It just gets put away. No one sees it but us
• 9:32
  internally, all right, The BSN people see it because they are
• 9:36
  going to have a merchandise store that's going to go live 5
• 9:40
  minutes after that game's national championship game is
• 9:42
  done with that logo on all kinds of merch, right?
• 9:45
  That's going to happen like right now in the first year, as
• 9:48
  you take note, we had to, we had to work a little bit to get DSN,
• 9:51
  get a rolling. Now we've got them trained so
• 9:53
  they know you're going to have this logo on all kinds of merch.
• 9:58
  And if we win that football game, that site's going to go
• 10:01
  live right now. We also invest and bring down
• 10:07
  merch with that on there. We don't show it to anybody.
• 10:10
  We keep it hidden away. We want to have merch to give
• 10:13
  out at the post game party, additional stuff for our players
• 10:16
  that have, for families that have, for fans that have don't.
• 10:18
  We'll just start slinging them out at the hotel, right?
• 10:21
  So there's a chance we lose and we wasted $5000 at the merch
• 10:25
  that that might happen. But if we win, people are crazy
• 10:30
  appreciative of the fact that they've got something to wear
• 10:34
  around right away, right? And then they want more of it.
• 10:37
  Where do we get more? Well, the website's live right
• 10:39
  now. Order up, right?
• 10:41
  So we, we do brand. So I encourage you, if you have
• 10:44
  something significant, create a brand, create a logo, create a
• 10:47
  mark, something that you know you're going to use that's going
• 10:49
  to mark that event, right? Brand it, mark it, sell it.
• 10:55
  And if you all have any questions, just raise your hand.
• 10:58
  Don't you know, how much time do I have, Jim?
• 11:04
  Awesome. OK, perfect.
• 11:06
  So if you have questions, just raise your hand.
• 11:08
  I talked about this a little bit and I don't know if these slides
• 11:10
  are in great order. Like I, I rearranged them a
• 11:12
  bunch of times and I'm like, you know, so, but I'm going to skip
• 11:15
  around a little bit. But institutional alignment,
• 11:17
  I've kind of alluded to that in order to make all this happen
• 11:19
  and get us there and have a successful event, you have to
• 11:21
  have an institutional alignment. But one of the things that we
• 11:23
  did, we knew we were going to do this going into the game.
• 11:27
  If we win this thing, we wanted to leverage this for a broader
• 11:30
  message. OK.
• 11:31
  And so university marketing communications, you can see kind
• 11:35
  of the middle kind of talks about it, Ferris, Ferris State,
• 11:38
  we don't just produce top quarterbacks.
• 11:40
  We celebrate national disc golf champions, trained life saving
• 11:43
  nurses, empowering welders, crafting components for massive
• 11:46
  jet engines. It's a community of bold
• 11:48
  innovators, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
• 11:51
  So we're we knew going in that if we win this thing, it's going
• 11:55
  to the message is going to go beyond athletics because you
• 11:59
  know, football's going to leverage the event, right?
• 12:01
  Every football coach is going to talk about it with recruits.
• 12:04
  They're they're going to find a way to take advantage of it to
• 12:06
  help continue to improve the football program athletically.
• 12:10
  We'll certainly leverage it. But the key is bringing value to
• 12:14
  the institution, right? So making sure that the
• 12:18
  institution, the president, the board of trustees and all that
• 12:20
  we're just a two, one or two ballot, right?
• 12:23
  Use us. I always say it all the time.
• 12:24
  I'm like, use us, right? We should be a tool for you,
• 12:29
  right? And that that brings value to us
• 12:31
  in their, in their eyes, right? We're 2 owner, 2 ball.
• 12:38
  This was also ready to go. This was up within hours.
• 12:44
  It says hours. I might have, I was going to say
• 12:45
  minutes, but it was hours. I know when we flew back to
• 12:48
  Grand Rapids, their estate is located about 60 minutes, maybe
• 12:53
  50 minutes from downtown Grand Rapids.
• 12:56
  But we got off the plane and we're driving back to Big
• 12:58
  Rapids. These billboards are all over.
• 13:01
  So they went live right away. And again, you have to be
• 13:05
  prepared. University marketing
• 13:06
  communications, they, they have to already have the Billboard
• 13:08
  space bought and held right. You have to have this ready to
• 13:12
  go. And then if we win, boom, those
• 13:15
  are going live. All right.
• 13:17
  So again, taking advantage of the event and being ready to go,
• 13:20
  a lot of it's in preparation, but it created a ton of buzz.
• 13:24
  They were really pretty cool and they went all over the state of
• 13:27
  Michigan, which which was awesome.
• 13:29
  And they actually, we kept them up for a long time because
• 13:32
  again, we wanted to extend that event.
• 13:35
  We wanted to extend that accomplishment so we can
• 13:38
  continue to spread that message about Ferris State and not the
• 13:42
  message about football and not the message necessary about the
• 13:45
  national championship. Yes, we're using that, but the
• 13:49
  message is more, the message is about our championship program.
• 13:53
  It's about our championship students, right?
• 13:56
  It's about innovators, it's about.
• 13:57
  So it's about building champions in so many other ways.
• 14:02
  Football was just a part of it and football just gives us a
• 14:04
  platform to use that as a message.
• 14:10
  So we created a rebuild champions marketing plan, All
• 14:16
  right. So again, they took football and
• 14:17
  said we're going to, we're going to expand this thing.
• 14:19
  It's going to go beyond beyond football, right?
• 14:22
  So our plan is all about and as reach right there, harnessing
• 14:25
  the energy of our athletic triumphs to celebrate a culture
• 14:29
  of excellence both on the field and in the classroom.
• 14:33
  This is our moment to inspire, achieve and demonstrate the true
• 14:38
  bulldog spirit, right? So it's growing it.
• 14:41
  And I think if you can get the message to university leadership
• 14:47
  that we're A2 on your two ball. And when we do something
• 14:49
  significant, we want to take advantage of that opportunity to
• 14:52
  help you all spread your message, right, whatever it may
• 14:56
  be as a university, let's let's spread that message of the
• 14:59
  university. One of the first things that we
• 15:03
  did when we got back and again, because we already had the logo
• 15:08
  done and ready. So when we returned, we returned
• 15:12
  on a holiday break. So there's nobody on campus.
• 15:15
  When the team gets back from this event it we're three or
• 15:18
  four days typically from Christmas.
• 15:20
  So there's not a lot that can happen when they return to
• 15:23
  campus, right? And some of the student athletes
• 15:26
  actually leave. In this case, we're down to
• 15:27
  Texas playing a game. They left from Texas and went
• 15:30
  back to their homes directly. They didn't fly back with the
• 15:33
  team, right, because it's a holiday break and they want to
• 15:34
  deal with their families. So one of the advantages to
• 15:38
  having your logo ready is that then we can order merch.
• 15:42
  So when our students returned on the first day of classes, we had
• 15:45
  a big student celebration and we could do that and we could have
• 15:49
  all kinds of merchandise there and free giveaways.
• 15:52
  Those are all free shirts that we hand out to the students
• 15:55
  because we already had these things in place.
• 15:57
  So it was really simple. So when we let we got back from
• 15:59
  the national championship game, we had three weeks to get this
• 16:03
  ordered and get it in and ready to go.
• 16:05
  And so we could do that. Now, the great thing about this
• 16:09
  event, we also invited community members to it, but we also
• 16:14
  invited media. And that was probably the most
• 16:16
  important part. Yes, it was cool for the
• 16:18
  students. We want to celebrate with them.
• 16:20
  We want to keep them excited. We want to retain them, right?
• 16:24
  But we want the media there. We want the community there.
• 16:27
  And so this is our president. President Bill Pink, who's an
• 16:31
  awesome dude. I couldn't ask for a better
• 16:35
  boss. The guy was a former student
• 16:38
  athlete, was a basketball player, was a director of
• 16:41
  basketball operations at Oklahoma, was a NAIAD at one
• 16:46
  point and then got his PhD and said, well, Lori, his wife said,
• 16:52
  I think you should stay on the academic track.
• 16:55
  And I said, you know, that was a really good decision, Bill,
• 16:56
  because I know what I'm making. I know what you making.
• 16:59
  That was a really, really good decision on your part.
• 17:02
  But he gets it right. When I go and have conversations
• 17:05
  with him, I'm really fortunate because he understands
• 17:08
  athletics, right? But he also understands how they
• 17:10
  utilize us, right, to advance, to advance the university.
• 17:13
  So that campus celebration, yes, we, we, we created it.
• 17:17
  And I don't want to say, when I say we, I'm talking about
• 17:19
  university advancement marketing, university
• 17:21
  communications. And President Pink is the
• 17:23
  driving force behind all this. So this is not I, I didn't do
• 17:26
  any of this. I'm just a participant in all of
• 17:28
  this. OK, But we created this event
• 17:32
  because again, you win and then all of a sudden it's the
• 17:35
  holidays and what happens over the holidays?
• 17:38
  You got Division One football, you've got, you know, the
• 17:41
  Christmas you got, you know, you've got all kinds of things
• 17:43
  happening. People will forget of what just
• 17:47
  happened, right? So we need to extend this
• 17:49
  accomplishment and this was one way step one besides the
• 17:54
  billboards of of doing that. So we had four TV stations there
• 17:58
  out of Grand Rapids. We had the huge radio show.
• 18:00
  He's got 17 stations across the state of Michigan and they were
• 18:04
  all there to cover this particular celebration.
• 18:07
  So again, you can see President Pink and I can tell you he's not
• 18:11
  just talking about football won the national championship.
• 18:14
  He's talking about what I the slide earlier.
• 18:17
  We build champions in everything we do.
• 18:20
  Here's all the other cool things we do at Ferris.
• 18:22
  Here's why you should come. Ferris, Right?
• 18:25
  It wasn't my mess. His message wasn't oh, so
• 18:27
  awesome. We won the football national
• 18:28
  championship. Yeah, that might have been the
• 18:30
  first sentence. But then from there it went
• 18:32
  about this is a great place to be, and here's why.
• 18:38
  Then the best. The fun part for me was we take
• 18:40
  the trophy on a road trip. If you win a trophy that's
• 18:44
  significant, don't put it in the case right away, right?
• 18:47
  Take that thing and go all over. And that's exactly what we did.
• 18:51
  So we took it down to Florida, and in fact, I had a special
• 18:56
  case for it. Hardcover case kind of felt like
• 18:59
  kind of a badass walking through the airport, like I had
• 19:02
  something really important, which I did.
• 19:03
  I didn't actually champion trophy, but it kind of looked
• 19:05
  like I was like kind of like a weapon or something, you know?
• 19:07
  So this big fancy hardcover case.
• 19:11
  But we made five stops in Florida.
• 19:13
  Two of them were small, really exclusive donor events.
• 19:17
  People love to get a picture with the trophy.
• 19:20
  So if you want a cool trophy or something, you'll be surprised.
• 19:23
  Like you think, oh, they probably don't want a pitch.
• 19:24
  Oh no, they all want a pitcher with it, like they want a
• 19:28
  pitcher, right. And then we have some alumni
• 19:29
  events down here. You can see the ones in spring
• 19:31
  training at the Tigers there. And people were, you know, they,
• 19:34
  they showed up and they wanted to get a pitcher with the
• 19:36
  trophy. And so, and then we had two
• 19:38
  stops in Arizona. So take advantage.
• 19:41
  That's simple. That's a really simple one.
• 19:43
  Take the trophy, take it with you, go everywhere you can and
• 19:47
  get as many pictures as you can. People love it, right, People.
• 19:50
  And then what do they do with it?
• 19:52
  Even even older people like me post it.
• 19:56
  Yeah, right. They post it and then they talk
• 19:59
  about Ferris. And so now you're, you're
• 20:01
  getting more attention and you're building more traction.
• 20:03
  And so, yeah, they'll post it. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm in my
• 20:06
  50s, but I get it, man. I can still post some stuff, you
• 20:09
  know, and, and so can a lot of our, a lot of our alums, OK,
• 20:13
  they can post it too. And and that's exactly, that's
• 20:16
  exactly what happens. So.
• 20:18
  It was really cool. It was a lot of fun.
• 20:20
  I know this fall, president pick, we did 5 stops around the
• 20:24
  state of Michigan also before we won this third one and we took
• 20:27
  the previous two trophies and went around the state.
• 20:30
  We do these talks every other year and people love to get
• 20:33
  pictures of those two trophies, right?
• 20:35
  So just something to get people excited about.
• 20:37
  Fairs get it posted on social media, but really, really cool.
• 20:41
  Really cool work with your community.
• 20:47
  So we had an opportunity. We worked with our downtown
• 20:49
  Business Association, with our Chamber of Commerce, with our
• 20:53
  city leadership and had a parade, had a big parade.
• 20:57
  It was really, really cool. Now we did that two years ago,
• 20:59
  we had a parade and we did it truly a year.
• 21:02
  We did it in March and March in Michigan.
• 21:04
  Blah. OK, so we did this one in later
• 21:08
  April and you can see the sun was out.
• 21:10
  People were excited. But again, another opportunity
• 21:12
  because this was covered by the media too.
• 21:14
  We had the same Grand Rapids stations up that cover this
• 21:18
  parade. So we're taking that event that
• 21:21
  happened back in the third week of December and now we're in
• 21:25
  April and we're still getting coverage and we're division two
• 21:29
  school. You don't get many opportunities
• 21:31
  as a division two school to get the kind of coverage that we
• 21:35
  received. You don't give me opportunities
• 21:36
  to be on ESPN. Now we have Division One hockey.
• 21:38
  So that's at times we'll, we'll get some advantages because we
• 21:41
  have Division One hockey program, but in general for us
• 21:44
  this to get on ESPN and build to take this championship and
• 21:48
  extend it was pretty significant.
• 21:50
  We also got a sponsor, Granger construction was a sponsor of
• 21:53
  it. So it was really, it was really
• 21:55
  a cool event and I was, there were a lot of people there, a
• 21:57
  lot of people. And big rap is, by the way, it's
• 21:59
  a town of about 10,000 people. So it's not a, it's not a huge
• 22:02
  town. Now at the university, we have
• 22:03
  10,000 students. So the town double s when we
• 22:07
  when we come into session government leaders, this is
• 22:13
  really important, right? Take the time to celebrate with
• 22:15
  government leaders. They make a lot of decisions
• 22:17
  that can impact your institution.
• 22:19
  OK, that's Governor Whitmer. She's a Democrat and we got her
• 22:23
  to wear red pants. Pretty cool doctor coming to
• 22:27
  town. So, but what a great opportunity
• 22:29
  for us to go down there, go down to Lansing, spend some time with
• 22:33
  government leaders, share with them the story, right?
• 22:37
  And of course, President Pink spends time talking to our
• 22:40
  legislative leaders, Governor Whitmer, who he already has a
• 22:43
  good relationship with, but he's there talking about fair state,
• 22:47
  our needs, what we're trying to accomplish, what we are
• 22:51
  accomplishing, right? So again, the message is broader
• 22:54
  than just, hey, we're here to celebrate a football national
• 22:57
  championship, OK? So it gives him that opportunity
• 23:00
  to continue to have those conversations and it puts us at
• 23:05
  least for a few hours in the forefront of our legislative
• 23:08
  leaders and governors mind. And they are going to, as I
• 23:11
  mentioned earlier, they're going to make a lot of decisions that
• 23:14
  will impact higher Ed and certainly Fair State University.
• 23:17
  So we want to make sure that we take the time to celebrate with
• 23:22
  them. Any questions?
• 23:26
  OK, keep going, celebrate with the Board of Trustees, right?
• 23:31
  You have to do this, obviously, but this is important too.
• 23:33
  So I didn't want to leave this one out because you do have to
• 23:35
  celebrate with the university leadership and that's that's
• 23:38
  what we did. Foundation board, board of
• 23:40
  trustees make sure that. And again, they all love the
• 23:42
  trophy. Everybody wants a trophy.
• 23:44
  All the board of trustee members got individual pitchers with the
• 23:46
  trophy. We actually had a backdrop that
• 23:49
  was made specifically for the national championship game so
• 23:53
  that we could bring that along with us.
• 23:54
  So if you wanted to backdrop behind you, it was branded
• 23:56
  appropriately and for the national championship game that
• 23:59
  you can get your picture with that.
• 24:03
  Launch a campaign. So we launched a campaign.
• 24:06
  There's really two campaigns. We're getting ready to launch a
• 24:08
  financial campaign actually tomorrow.
• 24:10
  It goes live July 15th. We had a committee meeting this
• 24:13
  morning. And so we're going to take
• 24:14
  advantage of this national championship to launch a
• 24:16
  campaign to improve our athletic facilities.
• 24:19
  But we're also launching a campaign, as you can see, a
• 24:21
  marketing campaign, right? Through captivating
• 24:23
  storytelling, we'll showcase how Bulldogs dominate in their
• 24:26
  fields, embody the power, grit and determination it takes to be
• 24:30
  a true champion. If you drive on Ferris State's
• 24:33
  campus right now, we have got that logo.
• 24:37
  We build champions all over campus.
• 24:40
  It's all over. OK, so they have made that kind
• 24:43
  of their mantra for the next year or so.
• 24:46
  So again, taking advantage of the football national
• 24:49
  championship and it can, it can be whatever achievement for you
• 24:51
  is significant and taking advantage of that to tell a
• 24:55
  story. Social media presence, you know,
• 25:02
  you can imagine right, when you anytime that you have an
• 25:05
  opportunity to get on a platform similar to ESPN or inside of a
• 25:11
  national championship venue, you can, you can certainly leverage
• 25:14
  the social media and that's exactly that's what we did.
• 25:17
  So our social media accounts went viral, skyrocketing to
• 25:22
  skyrocketing to reach the new and exciting audiences.
• 25:25
  So one of the stats I bolded because I just thought this was
• 25:27
  really interesting. Facebook alone, just Facebook
• 25:31
  had an incredible 353,000 views. But the kicker, 81% of the
• 25:38
  viewers weren't even following us yet.
• 25:41
  Those are new people, right? That are engaging with the
• 25:44
  university maybe for the first time, right?
• 25:46
  We always talk about athletics and we always talk about we're
• 25:50
  the front porch to the university, right?
• 25:53
  Well, this is how you make sure we're the front porch to the
• 25:55
  university. This is how you make sure people
• 25:57
  see the front porch. And then you once you get them
• 25:59
  on the front porch, you got to make sure they have an
• 26:00
  opportunity to see into the house.
• 26:01
  And so that's exactly what we're doing with this event, right?
• 26:05
  We're using this as our this football national championship
• 26:09
  of the steps, as the steps into the front porch, but then we're
• 26:11
  going to leverage it and make sure you can see into the house
• 26:14
  so you can. It talks about reharsing the
• 26:16
  momentum, the amplifier. We build champions message
• 26:18
  across platforms celebrating fairest states, unstoppable
• 26:22
  success and growing our bulldog community like never before.
• 26:29
  Then they launched and I would say they this is university
• 26:32
  marketing and advancement. They launched a web page similar
• 26:35
  to what we did with the national championship game.
• 26:36
  But this is, we built champions web page and the goal as it, as
• 26:40
  it reads right there is to share success stories from across
• 26:43
  university linking athletic dominance with national
• 26:46
  leadership in the fields from information security to pharmacy
• 26:49
  to graphic design and more. So to me that that that kind of
• 26:54
  tells us all right here, right? We're going to take it, take
• 26:57
  advantage of this athletic performance, but we're going to
• 27:00
  link it to everything else that we're so damn proud of at Ferris
• 27:04
  State. And we want you to know about
• 27:06
  when it comes to Ferris State because this is important that
• 27:08
  you understand. Yeah, we won some football games
• 27:11
  and we're pretty good. But damn, we're really good in
• 27:13
  pharmacy too. We're really good in
• 27:15
  cybersecurity. Student success stories on that
• 27:22
  web page, or student success stories in this case.
• 27:25
  They have Kenzie Bowers, who is one of our women's basketball
• 27:27
  players. But that web page has more than
• 27:29
  just student. I probably should have put
• 27:30
  Kenzie's picture. I love her.
• 27:31
  She's awesome. But I probably should have just
• 27:33
  put a student on her because they also have lots of students
• 27:36
  stories, right, Which was the intent of that web page.
• 27:38
  It was to tell not only student athletes stories, but to tell
• 27:41
  stories about our students and how well that they're doing in
• 27:46
  their particular career field or in their experience at Ferris
• 27:50
  State. Well, Well, I think I should
• 27:54
  have opted. Yeah, there we go.
• 27:59
  Obviously, admissions, right? We joined with admissions.
• 28:01
  So I mentioned on the championship web page, you can
• 28:05
  select on there. Do you want to become a Bulldog?
• 28:08
  And it links you right to the admissions site.
• 28:11
  So you can apply right there and become a Ferris State Bulldog.
• 28:14
  That's on the national championship page.
• 28:16
  But we also spent a lot of time working with admissions to make
• 28:20
  sure they had the same access to the trophies and the backdrops
• 28:23
  and coaching. Nice.
• 28:24
  Who's our head football coach and whoever they wanted to have
• 28:28
  that person, that trophy, attend any of their significant events.
• 28:32
  Because again, prospective students like to get their
• 28:35
  picture taken with a trophy, Right?
• 28:38
  Pretty cool, right? Pretty cool.
• 28:40
  And again, students do this. I said we're not too bad people.
• 28:43
  We're in our 50s at posting, but the best are these people,
• 28:47
  right? So these young kids are going to
• 28:49
  take a picture of that trophy. It's going to create one or a
• 28:52
  remarkable experience for them when they come to Ferris, right?
• 28:54
  It's going to be unlike any other admissions experience that
• 28:57
  they have. They got to put you with the
• 28:58
  national championship trophy and then they're going to post it
• 29:01
  all over because it's cool to post stuff, right?
• 29:04
  So they're going to post this thing all over and talk about
• 29:06
  Ferris and talk about their visit and show the trophy.
• 29:09
  And of course, who's reading all their posts?
• 29:13
  Other other prospective students, right?
• 29:15
  I mean, other 16 to 19 year olds, OK, that's who's reading
• 29:19
  their post. So just another, just take
• 29:21
  advantage of another opportunity, work with
• 29:23
  admissions. And again, this goes back to
• 29:26
  what I spoke to earlier, having institutional alignment, right?
• 29:29
  So making sure admissions, student affairs, advancement,
• 29:32
  marketing, university communications, the present,
• 29:35
  right? Everybody's working together to
• 29:38
  take advantage of this particular opportunity.
• 29:42
  A powerful story to tell. So this is President Pink.
• 29:45
  He's at Detroit runways game and the pregame show there on on TV
• 29:49
  and he's wearing his national championship shirt, handing out
• 29:53
  free shirts. But he's telling a story, right?
• 29:56
  All year long, we build champions.
• 29:58
  We'll be the heart of everything we do.
• 30:00
  Driving conversations, fueling our efforts, and making an
• 30:03
  impact everywhere we go with specialized programs.
• 30:06
  High achieving students in an unstoppable commitment to
• 30:10
  excellence. Ferris State has a powerful
• 30:12
  story to tell, one that sets us apart and proves that champions
• 30:15
  are built right here. And everyone, including you and
• 30:19
  you and you and you can join us. You don't have to be a football
• 30:23
  player. You want to be a champion.
• 30:25
  You don't have to be a football player.
• 30:27
  You can be a nursing major, you can be cybersecurity, you can be
• 30:31
  a pharmacy, you can be optometry.
• 30:33
  We're going to make you a champion in your field because
• 30:35
  that's what we do. The numbers up to this point, I
• 30:42
  just thought these were really interesting to see the social
• 30:46
  media reach in numbers. So 443 million people, social
• 30:52
  media views, 1.17 million increase in Ferris related
• 30:56
  Google searches, 443%. So if you're president of board
• 31:02
  trustees say why should we support athletics?
• 31:05
  What do you do for us? What do we do for you a lot,
• 31:09
  right? We do a lot.
• 31:10
  If you utilize us the right way, if we become a tool for the
• 31:15
  university and you know how to use the tool, we can do a lot
• 31:18
  for you, right? It's a good return on your
• 31:21
  investment. OK, somebody was asking, we were
• 31:24
  talking budgets earlier. So I mentioned what do you do if
• 31:26
  you go to a championship? We, we have a budget placeholder
• 31:30
  for championships because our president recognizes winning
• 31:36
  championships is not just a big deal for for me or for the coach
• 31:40
  or for the student athletes. It's a really big deal, for
• 31:43
  instance, this institution, because we're going to utilize
• 31:46
  it and we're going to message around it, right?
• 31:48
  So it's broader than just what we do athletically increase
• 31:53
  affairs, football, Google searches and we, and again, we
• 31:56
  knew that. And again, I'm not trying to
• 31:57
  knock what you can do from an athletic program standpoint.
• 32:01
  I'm just saying that's not the real value in it.
• 32:04
  The real value is the one you can do for the institution.
• 32:07
  OK, but 552% increase in fairest football searches, 30% increase
• 32:11
  in traffic to fairest Edu, increase in traffic to
• 32:15
  athletics, say 119% referrals, 101 increase in search
• 32:19
  availability. So it's a big deal.
• 32:23
  It's a big deal. More people get engaged with
• 32:25
  your institution because of the the success that you have
• 32:29
  athletically. That's just that's the reality
• 32:31
  of it. So I think it's it's a great, it
• 32:35
  was a great event, it was a ton of fun.
• 32:36
  It was a great experience for our student athletes.
• 32:38
  But more importantly, I think for the first time we really got
• 32:42
  it right in terms of let's take advantage of this, right?
• 32:45
  Let's take advantage. Let's make sure that we're
• 32:47
  utilizing this and to its full extent and let's extend this
• 32:51
  particular event and make it last as long as we can.
• 32:56
  OK. Now we also did a ring ceremony,
• 32:58
  a big banquet for the student athletes, right?
• 32:59
  We did all those things. But those are those are things
• 33:01
  that are going to happen everywhere.
• 33:02
  If we want a national champion, there's nothing unusual about
• 33:04
  having a big banquet with a big ring ceremony.
• 33:06
  That's that's just going to happen.
• 33:08
  But it's all those other things that we did to try to bring
• 33:11
  attention and focus to the university.
• 33:14
  To me, that is really cool. OK, so I got that a little bit
• 33:19
  early. I was talking fast pretty pumped
• 33:23
  up be here so but I'm happy to take some questions and I would
• 33:27
  like to know if you think there's anything in there that
• 33:29
  we're missing like you say, did you ever think about doing this?
• 33:33
  I hope we win another one. I'd like to make sure that we do
• 33:34
  everything we can do right. So if anybody has thoughts, has
• 33:37
  anybody done anything similar or different to what has been put
• 33:41
  up there? Yeah, so my previous institution
• 33:43
  are searching one conference and.
• 33:51
  That following year at football, during one of the time outs we
• 33:55
  had the whole team come out and we did their ring ceremony there
• 33:58
  in front of the. Football.
• 34:00
  Yeah. So, people.
• 34:01
  Saw that since, you know, swim was successful, it was
• 34:03
  definitely quite small. For us, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 34:08
  yeah. But still a really big deal,
• 34:09
  right? Yeah.
• 34:10
  An opportunity to promote the student athletes from the
• 34:12
  university, get people excited about athletics.
• 34:14
  And we've done some ring ceremonies outside too, at
• 34:17
  certain events. But with football, we did one
• 34:19
  that was kind of a separate. Now it was big.
• 34:21
  When I say separate, it was, I don't know, former people like
• 34:25
  it was a big, you know, big ceremony, but it wasn't
• 34:27
  necessarily out in, out in the public, so to speak.
• 34:29
  Yeah, Jim, same thing with our. Rescue program we bought 17 and
• 34:35
  so we again pre by. Her Yeah post.
• 34:36
  Game posted at party for donors and the team at the hotel after.
• 34:40
  So we have the space about this size and we're throwing a party.
• 34:43
  But again, it's a risk you take, like everything in place.
• 34:46
  Yeah. Do it in India if you want it
• 34:50
  and it just gets the rest to take care.
• 34:53
  We get back from spring break so the kids leave from the
• 34:55
  championship. We do not do a good job of
• 34:58
  continuing it after spring break.
• 34:59
  He did like kids leave, you leave, you know, don't forget
• 35:03
  about it. And it's spring.
• 35:04
  Sports are here. Right, right, just.
• 35:06
  On the same things where you plan around it if you're winning
• 35:10
  it if you're not, but the merge and the party will.
• 35:13
  Be yeah, the we, we did a party too.
• 35:14
  Jake will attest to a couple of our post game national
• 35:17
  championship parties. They're really good.
• 35:19
  Sometimes a little costly. We have a little extra hotel
• 35:21
  bill to pay occasionally after the parties.
• 35:24
  But we do have a big, big party that's already booked, foods
• 35:27
  ordered and we're ready to go. Right.
• 35:29
  It's it's so there is a little bit of a risk.
• 35:31
  I think people still come down and eat.
• 35:33
  I don't know if it would be the party that that we had.
• 35:35
  But the other thing that's really cool about going to
• 35:37
  events like this is we have had an opportunity to engage with so
• 35:41
  many donors that we normally wouldn't engage with, right?
• 35:45
  People come from all over when you're going to an event like
• 35:47
  this, right? So I'll give you an example.
• 35:49
  The head of our campaign that's getting ready to announce
• 35:51
  tomorrow was a gentleman that we met this year at the national
• 35:54
  championship game. So he's a, he's an executive
• 35:58
  who's just retiring. And he got down there, he got so
• 36:01
  excited, right? And he was a basketball player.
• 36:04
  And he's like, Steve, this is so awesome.
• 36:06
  Like, I love it. This is great.
• 36:07
  What can I do? What can I do?
• 36:09
  What can I do? And then introduce some of the
• 36:10
  president bankers there, You know, what can I do?
• 36:12
  I want to get involved. And then Kathy Mullins, our VP
• 36:15
  for advancement. What can I do?
• 36:16
  Kathy? I just want to get involved.
• 36:17
  I want to help. I've got time.
• 36:19
  I'm retiring. I can, I can, I can, I can put a
• 36:22
  lot of time and energy into something.
• 36:23
  And he's well connected. And so he's now the chair of our
• 36:27
  campaign committee. Have we not gone to the national
• 36:29
  championship game right now? Garry's not.
• 36:32
  She ever can't thank you. Because I don't know if we ever
• 36:34
  meet Gary, maybe at some point we would connect with Gary, but
• 36:37
  certainly not that early. So people get excited, right?
• 36:40
  So the other thing is when you're down at those events, if
• 36:43
  you have that opportunity, make sure you have people there and
• 36:46
  Jake will test. Jake came down the first year.
• 36:47
  He was our Rev Gen. guy and advancement guy.
• 36:49
  So Jake was introducing me because this was my first year
• 36:52
  at fair. So Jake was introducing me to
• 36:54
  all kinds of alumni and donors. But make sure you have a team of
• 36:56
  people there that are ready to spend time with donors.
• 37:00
  Like it's not you don't come down or just to hang out like
• 37:02
  you should be seeing who's there, getting introduced to new
• 37:05
  alumni, seeing what donors are there.
• 37:07
  We also have a hospitality room that we book when we're down
• 37:10
  there so that donors and certain people can just come in and hang
• 37:14
  out, you know, the nights prior to the national championship
• 37:16
  game. So, yeah, make sure you take
• 37:17
  advantage of that, too. I'll come right back to you,
• 37:20
  Jim. Yeah.
• 37:22
  To what extent did you have a strategy around solicitations
• 37:27
  from the point you won the national championship to the
• 37:30
  launch of the campaign? We Yeah, yeah, we started
• 37:35
  meeting so we knew we we knew we had to make some facility
• 37:37
  upgrades. And if you've been to Ferris
• 37:39
  State and Andy's been there, I mean, our our facility is
• 37:41
  garbage. It really is like you you'd be
• 37:44
  amazed at how bad our our our football facility is.
• 37:47
  It goes back is Tim sell the one here.
• 37:50
  OK. Tim used to always talk about a
• 37:51
  book by Woody Hayes that he says, because I worked for Tim
• 37:55
  at Grand Valley, it was called you win with people.
• 37:58
  And that's so true, right? Because our, if you saw our
• 38:02
  football facility, you'd say, well, my local high school is a
• 38:04
  way better football facility. He's not in his head because
• 38:05
  he's better than you guys have. So you do win with people,
• 38:09
  right? And and I think we've proven
• 38:11
  that, but we need to upgrade our facilities.
• 38:14
  So we knew that, hey, we need to address these facilities.
• 38:18
  If we win this national championship game, we got to
• 38:20
  really take advantage of this to try to address these facilities.
• 38:23
  So it was probably 1st of February when we first got Gary
• 38:27
  together and started talking about what, what do we want to
• 38:30
  do, How do we create the committee.
• 38:32
  We already had from a budget standpoint, we already had
• 38:35
  project design, engineering design.
• 38:37
  We, we went through that design phase.
• 38:38
  So we were, we're ready from that standpoint and had been out
• 38:41
  for pre bid. So we, we knew the numbers, we
• 38:44
  know the numbers that we need to have.
• 38:46
  So we had that already in advance, but we really started
• 38:49
  meeting intentionally early in February and then we just worked
• 38:53
  our way and and so we had our last meeting today and we
• 38:56
  announce it tomorrow. So I don't know if that answers
• 38:58
  the question or not, but. Yeah, I was just trying to
• 39:00
  understand. At my institution, we win a
• 39:02
  conference championship and it'll be congratulations, first
• 39:06
  paragraph. And the second paragraph is
• 39:08
  please make a gift to XYZ. And so just trying to
• 39:12
  understand. What would be an appropriate
• 39:14
  amount of time to engage? Well, we do have the donor.
• 39:19
  You can select on the on the national championship page,
• 39:22
  there's a donor. So you can even before we win
• 39:24
  it, right? Like, hey, if you want to
• 39:25
  contribute, right, you can have the opportunity to contribute.
• 39:27
  So I don't think it's ever too early to ask, right?
• 39:30
  You got to you got to ask. You can't you can't get any
• 39:32
  money if you don't ask. I know that.
• 39:33
  Right. So some people don't want to
• 39:35
  ask. You can't be scared to ask.
• 39:36
  Just ask. What do they say?
• 39:37
  No. OK.
• 39:38
  All right, moving on. OK.
• 39:40
  Yeah. Jim, I'm sorry.
• 39:40
  Jim, my question was it's clear to see the return.
• 39:45
  Do you have an estimate on what you spent?
• 39:48
  Yeah, Yeah, I do have an estimate on what we spent.
• 39:51
  We probably spent about, I would say charter flights 120,125
• 39:59
  thousand. Some of that gets covered by the
• 40:00
  NCAA. We bring down more.
• 40:02
  I'm talking about, oh, I'm talking about the hey, we just
• 40:06
  want everything goes active shirts to purchase trips to
• 40:10
  Florida. I don't know.
• 40:13
  I don't have that number. I I could probably get it, but I
• 40:15
  don't, I don't know it off top. No, I would, I would have to put
• 40:18
  a pencil of paper. And the bigger question is, I
• 40:24
  think what I heard you say was the university was prepared to
• 40:27
  cover that. Yes, Yes, they were.
• 40:28
  Yes, they were. Yes, yes.
• 40:31
  Right on. Right on.
• 40:32
  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 40:34
  We we like I said, we have a place where in our budget for
• 40:36
  championships. So anything with a team, you
• 40:38
  know, athletic administration that's covered out of that line
• 40:40
  item, that's a placeholder for us, but anything else beyond
• 40:44
  that was covered by the university.
• 40:46
  And again, that's just championed by our president,
• 40:48
  Bill Pink and and Kathy Mullins, our VP for advancement and Dave
• 40:52
  Murray and we just have some really awesome people.
• 40:54
  Yeah, so I kind of similar question, so I'll just go
• 40:59
  further with that. Like how how did you have that
• 41:03
  conversation? It sounds like you're president.
• 41:05
  Maybe you didn't have that conversation, but just getting
• 41:08
  them there to acknowledge and value that and seeing that
• 41:13
  earmarking $7000 to just sit there in case you're in hopes of
• 41:20
  championship. And I know you guys have a lot
• 41:22
  of success. So you know, it's become a
• 41:26
  regular occurrence, which I know doesn't happen by chance, right,
• 41:29
  right. Just a just a conversation you
• 41:32
  get there and and that understanding that there is now
• 41:38
  you elect that's not no, it's not easy.
• 41:39
  And and for President Pink, it's it's been a challenge for sure,
• 41:41
  right, because not everyone across campus is going to see
• 41:44
  that, right? Not everybody agrees with that,
• 41:46
  right. So I think it's a lot of it's
• 41:48
  his leadership and his ability to message to the board of
• 41:50
  trustees, to the foundation board, to faculty, right, that
• 41:54
  we're going to utilize athletics that there's value here.
• 41:57
  So I really give him the credit for that.
• 41:58
  It's just story, right? And so he's been crazy
• 42:03
  supportive. But you're right, you know, if,
• 42:04
  if the president's not on board, it would, this wouldn't happen.
• 42:07
  I mean, that's the reality of it, right?
• 42:08
  It just wouldn't happen. So it's it's a credit to him and
• 42:12
  and to university leadership. So Steve, you mentioned that you
• 42:14
  won three of them. Now, how have you been able to
• 42:18
  keep your fan base engaged and excited about this to where it's
• 42:22
  not, to where it's like, oh, we just won another national
• 42:24
  championship and they taken advantage of.
• 42:26
  I always, you know, like, how do you keep the engagement of the
• 42:29
  parade? Like, I don't know.
• 42:30
  I just think society in general, like, you win a few in a row.
• 42:33
  People started taking it for granted.
• 42:35
  How have you continued to make it a big time deal even after
• 42:38
  it's not the first time? Yeah, I think we've done a
• 42:40
  better job of promoting it. And like I said, this time, I
• 42:43
  think we did more than we ever have done in the past in terms
• 42:47
  of just talking about it, promoting it, being it out
• 42:50
  there. So now if we happen to be
• 42:51
  fortunate for one another one, I'm not sure what will happen,
• 42:54
  right, because you're right, I think we had this one pretty
• 42:56
  greased up and So what, So what, how are we going to take it to
• 43:00
  another level if we happen to be fortunate enough to get another
• 43:03
  one? Right?
• 43:04
  I, I'm not, I'm not sure. I don't know if I have the
• 43:06
  answer to that. I, I think our university
• 43:09
  marketing team and communications will probably be
• 43:11
  brainstorming that right? Like how do we, OK, how do we do
• 43:13
  this again and keep people excited about because you're
• 43:16
  right, people assume I got people all the time.
• 43:17
  Go, what's the national championship game next year?
• 43:20
  I'm like, are you crazy? Like, you know how hard it is.
• 43:22
  It's hard to win. I mean, I coached, right?
• 43:24
  I don't know if somebody you've coached and if you coach, you
• 43:27
  know how hard it is to win a game.
• 43:29
  Like winning's hard. I tell people all the time.
• 43:31
  So winning's really hard. So to just assume that you're
• 43:34
  going to go win a national championship, it just blows my
• 43:36
  mind. But that's that's yeah.
• 43:38
  But people do assets. So you're right.
• 43:39
  I am concerned a little bit about that.
• 43:40
  Yeah, sorry. How would you leverage a
• 43:42
  different sport if they were going to the same crown?
• 43:46
  You have this planning football to choose cross country,
• 43:52
  volleyball, basketball. I, I, you know, I think to some
• 43:56
  degree we would, right? I think it depends upon the
• 43:58
  sport. So I think for every institution
• 44:00
  you have certain sports that are kind of your marquee sports,
• 44:02
  right? For us, volleyball is a big one,
• 44:05
  right? I think we won a national
• 44:06
  championship in volleyball. We would probably do something
• 44:08
  very similar. Men's basketball.
• 44:10
  I think we would do something very similar in women's
• 44:12
  basketball. Would we do the same for cross
• 44:14
  country? I don't know.
• 44:14
  Would we do something? No, because I know our president
• 44:17
  would not allow us to not message it and not celebrate it
• 44:20
  and not use it to try to spread the university message.
• 44:23
  I know we would not allow that to happen.
• 44:25
  Now, when we do it at the same scale that we did this, I'm not
• 44:28
  sure. I'm not sure.
• 44:31
  My guess is probably not right. But for some of those marquee
• 44:34
  sports, my guess is we probably would.
• 44:35
  Yeah, just said like with Bellevue University.
• 44:38
  I'm also the head volatile coach and assisted athletic director,
• 44:45
  so small school. We were in the national
• 44:47
  championship this year, so unplanned shocking.
• 44:50
  Everything's great. So to your point, that's
• 44:53
  awesome. Congrats with that powerhouse,
• 44:55
  but and they don't plan all of all the time.
• 44:58
  So a couple of things that were very sentimental because no one
• 45:04
  knows our story. We were up 14 to 7 in the final
• 45:08
  semi lost 1614 for the national championship.
• 45:11
  So after all that mass hurt. But one sentimental thing that
• 45:17
  brought was free basically was and we're all territorial.
• 45:22
  All of us coaches and staff are territorial, but the coaches
• 45:27
  brought their teams up. Now we were driving distance,
• 45:31
  but we had baseball and basketball coaches yelling at
• 45:35
  their kids. You will go to this because you
• 45:37
  will remember this and not winning.
• 45:42
  We had grown young men crying. That's awesome.
• 45:47
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really cool.
• 45:51
  Yeah. There were watch parties at
• 45:54
  local community places that we did not know until we got back
• 45:57
  that had these bar parties. So then we had again, free a
• 46:03
  cost and not plan. We had our student athletes
• 46:07
  bringing a flag or a ball or something back to those
• 46:12
  community things and events. And again, we had an emotional
• 46:16
  young man that owned a tea shop crying.
• 46:19
  Same thing. Yeah, Yeah, that is so cool.
• 46:21
  So a couple of things too. We we did watch parties.
• 46:24
  We happen to be very fortunate the we we have an alumni who
• 46:29
  owns 100B dubs, 105B dubs across the country.
• 46:33
  I'm looking at Jake because Jake knows what I'm talking about.
• 46:35
  I think he's somewhere around that number.
• 46:36
  So we had watch parties, several watch parties throughout the
• 46:40
  state of Michigan at these B dubs and again, free.
• 46:42
  So that was that was awesome. And then to coach Anice's
• 46:46
  credit, now this, this does hurt the budget, but we order more
• 46:50
  rings and hand them out like candy, which is kind of crazy,
• 46:54
  but people so appreciate it, right?
• 46:56
  So you get this $300 Jostens ring and it means the world to
• 47:01
  people. And we probably once we give it
• 47:04
  to them, they're engaged forever.
• 47:07
  Like they're locked in now, you know, my presence sometimes
• 47:10
  like, man, that's, you know, we're buying a lot of rings, you
• 47:12
  know, and I'm like the, the, the return on investment is going to
• 47:15
  be good. It just feels a little painful
• 47:17
  when I'm writing a check to Jostens for sure, Right.
• 47:19
  Well, maybe I can save you some money.
• 47:22
  When we had a similar situation, we won one, had an opportunity
• 47:26
  for it and our coaches on the field, we had a family that kind
• 47:29
  of thankful for one of our programs.
• 47:32
  And he's holding the trophy and he says, man, I know that
• 47:34
  everybody is going to get one of the little big trophies.
• 47:37
  And we were an extra. And at the time I didn't know
• 47:40
  whether we could have not found out.
• 47:42
  We could. And so we ordered an extra from
• 47:44
  the NCAA at the time and then our coaching staff went to these
• 47:49
  individual families. We had five families with the
• 47:52
  miniature of the actual championship term and we didn't
• 47:56
  have a a need for the next decade.
• 47:59
  Yeah, yeah. And that's something yeah, 57
• 48:05
  dollars out of the yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:07
  Hirschley write the check. You're like, oh, that's a lot of
• 48:09
  money, you know, but but, but, but as you said, the return on
• 48:11
  investment, right, It's pretty, pretty important.
• 48:13
  So yeah, has your institution. Seen any effect on an element
• 48:17
  because of this? Yeah.
• 48:19
  So we were, so I, I can tell you that last year we were up 1%
• 48:22
  both in the fall and the winter and we don't take deposits from
• 48:25
  students. We know that our housing
• 48:26
  contracts are all full for next year, but we won't actually know
• 48:30
  our enrollment because we don't take a housing deposit or a
• 48:32
  deposit until we so we won't, I don't know they think we're
• 48:36
  going to be fine. So I don't know exactly what
• 48:39
  that means, right. And for us, that that'll be good
• 48:42
  in the state of Michigan where we're losing students and losing
• 48:44
  population and that we'll, we'll take that.
• 48:47
  You know, we the 1% doesn't sound like a lot, but in
• 48:49
  Michigan, that was a big deal. So we were more than happy
• 48:53
  because. Oh, yeah.
• 48:54
  Sorry. Yeah.
• 48:56
  Because, you know, I don't know how this is in your states, but
• 48:58
  for us, the flagships are always going to get their students
• 49:02
  right. So the Michigan States and
• 49:03
  Michigan's, they're going to get their classes.
• 49:05
  They might have to change their entry requirements, whatever,
• 49:08
  whatever they have to do, but they are going to hit their
• 49:10
  class. And then the rest of us are
• 49:11
  going to be, you know, fighting for those remaining students.
• 49:14
  So. So for us, I can't tie it
• 49:17
  directly. We do know that apps were up.
• 49:20
  We know that, but that doesn't mean that students weren't
• 49:23
  enrolled, right? I can't answer that question
• 49:24
  yet. So if you, if you call me in the
• 49:26
  middle of September, I can probably give you a better
• 49:27
  answer to that question. Yeah, Steve, great presentation,
• 49:31
  really appreciate it. 2 questions 1 you talked about
• 49:34
  obviously alignment. First question like with all
• 49:37
  your staff, all three championships advance and
• 49:41
  marketing like all together like they've all been there through
• 49:45
  the whole thing. No, no, we so, so President Pink
• 49:48
  actually was was not no, he was there for the first one.
• 49:52
  He had just started No, he missed the first one He was
• 49:55
  there for the second one. Sorry to think so he so he's
• 49:58
  been there for two of the three. Our advancement office had a
• 50:02
  turnover after the first one presidential transition and so
• 50:06
  we had some new people. But now athletically I lost Jake
• 50:11
  Hertz. Love you, Jake lost Jake after
• 50:16
  when we after the first one, right Jake?
• 50:18
  Yeah, after the first one. And but other than that
• 50:21
  athletically from a staffing standpoint, we had everybody so
• 50:25
  athletic. We were we were all there.
• 50:26
  I know you were talking about like pages, ideas and thrown out
• 50:30
  We're all here for and I didn't fire Jake, by the way, Jake just
• 50:32
  left on his own. So I just want to make that
• 50:34
  clear. Like when I say with him, Jake,
• 50:36
  Jake, Jake left at his own free will and now he's with open
• 50:41
  doors killing it. So yeah, going back to like you
• 50:44
  just, you know, Evan's asking, Hey, what are the things like
• 50:46
  that you would do? And and just trying to get bring
• 50:48
  ideas, bring it back. Hey, for 1/4, hopefully for you,
• 50:50
  but like, is there something you didn't do that you really wanted
• 50:54
  to that you like over these three?
• 50:56
  I, I don't know, didn't get done or like, I, I can't think of it.
• 51:01
  That's why I was hoping that some of you would if you saw,
• 51:03
  thought of something like, hey, you, you, you should have done
• 51:05
  this. Like you guys missed this
• 51:06
  opportunity. So if you have that, I would
• 51:08
  love to hear that. I can't think of anything right
• 51:12
  off the top of my head. Right.
• 51:13
  They were like, oh man, we really missed that.
• 51:16
  So, yeah, if there is something, we certainly, if we're
• 51:19
  fortunate, like I said, to win another one, we'd like to make
• 51:22
  sure we had it. Yeah.
• 51:23
  If you seats on your charter, would you invite your donors to
• 51:26
  build this? Yeah, we fill them all.
• 51:27
  We just paid for it. You just take coaches, wives,
• 51:30
  families. Yeah, we don't charge them.
• 51:33
  So it's, you know, you go to the national championship game
• 51:36
  through spouse got kids, we got donors.
• 51:39
  We're we're throwing them on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:42
  Always, always too important of an event to not have them there
• 51:46
  and to make coaches, families pay is we can't do that either.
• 51:50
  So we're just not going to do that.
• 51:54
  Anything else? All right, Final question.
• 51:59
  I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
• 52:02
  All right.