Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: BoSCA-Mike Hermann of Univ of Illinois-Springfield "Beyond the Playbook: Building Community and Campus Engagement Through Athletics"

Transcript

BONUS: BoSCA-Mike Hermann of Univ of Illinois-Springfield "Beyond the Playbook: Building Community and Campus Engagement Through Athletics" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  It's bonus time. Hey guys, recently your humble
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  host here, Mike Cunningham, attended the Bosca, the Business
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  of Small College athletics convention held up in Chicago on
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  an annual basis. What an amazing event with
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  athletic directors from around the country at great
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  universities. And we had a chance to record a
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  few of the speakers that were there.
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  And I thought there were some that, you know, as we have an
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  audience of track coaches in high school that are athletic
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  directors and we have college track coaches that maybe one day
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  will become athletic directors or athletic administration.
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  I thought there were some topics that would do real well for you
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  to learn from. So here we are.
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  We've got about 5 of them over the next 5 weeks that will do.
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  Today we are honored that Mike Herman, the athletic Director of
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  the University of Illinois Springfield, he kicked us off
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  for this Bosca convention. His topic is beyond the playbook
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  building community and campus engagement through athletics.
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  I hope you enjoy this. Hope you receive value.
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  And let's go right here, right now with Mike Herman.
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  You know, this is amazing. It's an amazing transformation
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  from what we did start with in Oklahoma City.
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  And I had a chance to go to a few of those seminars early on.
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  I'm kind of a prodigal son, by the way.
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  I started my career at a division two school, but I spent
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  a lot of it at Division One and was the athletic director at,
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  but most of the Division One schools I had were really small
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  colleges. I mean, they're, they have the
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  Division One name, but they they face the same things that many
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  of us face at the institutions we're at today.
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  And then I went, I was at Kansas Wesley as athletic director and
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  vice president for seven years. And I went back to Division One
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  for a little bit. And I am so happy to be not at
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  Division One. It's crazy time at Division One.
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  And the focus is not on the values that are important to me
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  and probably important to you. And that is, you know, providing
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  opportunities for our student athletes for crew readiness and
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  path to graduation and those things that are important.
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  But in in that time, I had a chance to go to Bosca and, and
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  Jim has really been a leader in in providing professional
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  development. So I want to start by asking
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  your help. Let's give him a round of
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  applause for what this has turned out to be and where we
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  are. And in my job as the first
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  speaker, I'm really kind of the opening act, right?
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  So I'm supposed to get you excited and started doing some
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  applause and that kind of stuff. So I have AI need another round
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  of applause. And that's for you guys.
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  I mean, you're here spending two days in July when there's a lot
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  of things that could be happening on your campus or in
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  your personal life that you could be doing and you're
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  spending time here working to get better as professionals.
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  Jim mentioned that our profession is unbelievable.
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  We're we're really willing to share information of it's, it's
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  really helpful to all of us. So I'm glad everyone's here
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  because it's the synergy of all of us together that's going to
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  make this a great event. So listen, Morano applause for
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  the group that's here today and what you're doing.
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  So I do want to start with this. I I'm kind of a maybe a Jim
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  described himself as a crusty former athletic director and
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  described me as old friends. So I guess I'm in that same
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  category, although I am a current athletic director, but I
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  same category of crusty. I actually lose use some AI in
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  this presentation. I was very proud of myself.
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  You know, I'm trying to adopt some new things.
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  We're working with fan word in our department at one this year.
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  We're excited about that, but I asked AI to give me 10 possible
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  topics for this conversation and this and this is the result of
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  that. We put it together beyond the
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  playbook building community and campus engagement through
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  college athletics. So that's what I want to talk a
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  bit about and I've had a chance to do it at a number of places.
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  I've been the athletic director at 4 institutions, Niagara
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  Towson, Kansas Wesleyan, and now at Illinois Springfield, and
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  I've been the senior associate at 5 institutions, Xavier,
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  Seattle, Old Dominion, Norfolk State and the University of
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  Pacific. Too many, but that's the way
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  that that's the career path that has been in front of me.
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  But, and, and community engagement has been an important
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  thing that I've done in each and every stop.
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  And what I want to do today is share with you some some ideas
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  that I'm using at UIS in here. There's going to be 12 ideas and
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  we're actually trying to implement all 12 because we're
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  crazy. And, and we think it's a good
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  idea to try to, to have big, big goals.
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  We're going to try to implement all 12 and it may not all work
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  in one year and and probably won't, but it's a long term
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  commitment and we're we're working towards that.
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  So I used AI to put this together.
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  I also used AI for this slide. I said, Hey, give me a title
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  slide and I put this together. I thought this AI thing's pretty
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  good, but that's the end of the AI piece.
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  So the rest, that's the end of the high tech.
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  So we're going to move on to the next step here.
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  And I want, you know, what does it look like?
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  What does it look like to have that community engagement?
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  And so, you know, there's a lot of aspects to it.
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  Certainly there's the aspect of of full, a full arena or even a,
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  a vibrant arena, vibrant arena, vibrant stadium.
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  This is Kansas West End's venue here.
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  But having that vibrant crowd is is part of it, having that
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  connection where people come to campus for your events.
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  But it's really more than that. It's more it's, it's the
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  conversation that takes place in the community, the anticipation
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  for the game and the conversations that take place
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  afterwards. It's when the community wants to
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  really help your student athletes where there's support
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  there, where there's opportunities for internships or
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  job shadowing or now in today's environment, NIL, That's what
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  really makes a community connection work.
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  And I know in this room, because many of you are friends and, and
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  long time colleagues, that there's a lot of your, in your
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  communities where, where a lot of this is taking place at a
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  very high level. And, and that's great.
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  And maybe from today you can take a little bit of something
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  of how to recharge something you're doing and, and maybe
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  maybe change something. But the schools I've worked at,
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  we were often building from Ground Zero where we didn't have
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  that connection with the community and we needed to build
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  it. And, and really that's what
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  we're trying to do is figure out what does it look like?
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  What does it build? Like how do we become a college
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  town, You know, because we want to be a, we want that college
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  town experience. You know, again, just to give an
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  example of how far we are, there's a group at in our market
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  called the Springfield Sangamon is our county Springfield
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  Sangamon Growth Alliance. It's the economic development
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  group and they put together a great publication they share
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  with people that are interested in coming to Springfield in, in
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  that publication, they say we're a college town in disguise.
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  And although that hurt a little bit to hear that it, it is
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  actually a pretty good assessment of where we are.
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  We're a college town in disguise.
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  UIS is there has been there since 1970.
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  We don't have the right, the strongest connection with the
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  community. We have a junior college.
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  Lincoln Land is is in there as well.
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  We have the, we have a medical school and some other things.
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  So we're a college town in disguise.
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  But how do we really become, get that college town experience?
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  What are the steps we're going to take?
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  And that was something we talked about from when I, when I took
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  the job. And so I have one year under my
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  belt at UIS and we're working on year 2 and putting some of these
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  plans in place. Some of these things we did in
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  the first year and, and some of them were going to do a little
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  more aggressively in, in year 2. But we want that college town
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  experience. And I thought it was funny, I
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  committed to this topic or ironic maybe that D2 ticker
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  changed their title name to, to college town because they, they
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  realized that's what we want. We want that college town feel.
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  So that's, that's, that's the, that's what we're all striving
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  for, you know, and, and why is it so hard?
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  You know, even in the time I've been in this business, which has
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  been a long time, I've seen it get more difficult to make that,
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  to get that community connection is why, why is it so hard?
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  You know, I think it's for a variety of reasons.
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  Your life has changed when you have started.
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  And they had a soccer field as one of the first lighted soccer
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  fields in the community. And everybody came to it because
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  it was unique and different. And now in our community, high
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  schools have, you know, beautiful stadiums and large
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  video boards and better facilities than we have.
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  And so that charm has gone away or that uniqueness has gone
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  away. But I also think that I also
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  think it's harder to visit a college campus today.
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  There used to be roads that went through campuses that college
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  had closed. To make it more of a campus
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  feel, they've put up fences. Some.
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  Some have a gatehouse. That's my gatehouse.
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  Some have a gatehouse. How many colleges have a
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  gatehouse to enter your campus? OK, so some do.
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  We did that at a few of the colleges I've worked at.
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  So that certainly doesn't say come on in, right.
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  That's that's, that's you have to really have a reason to want
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  to go there. And so that's part of it.
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  And and faculty, staff and students don't get off campus
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  like they once did. You know, it used to be the fact
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  they would have to go out to lunch together or they go get
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  coffee. Well, now there's Starbucks is
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  right on our campuses or Chick-fil-A is there, or you can
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  do Uber Eats and, and the idea of going off campus just doesn't
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  happen. So you have to be intentional
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  and you have to focus on it. And I just think that a number
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  of schools, at least the schools that I've been working at, that
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  hasn't happened previously. And so we're working to make it
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  more intentional. You know, I always, I've always
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  wanted to use this analogy. So here it is.
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  When do you, when do you start? When do you start trying to make
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  that connection with the community?
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  And it's like the adage of when, when do I build that shade tree
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  from my backyard? Well, the best time to build the
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  shade tree was 20 years ago because it would be a nice
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  beautiful Elm tree by now. But the second best time to
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  start is is today. Start building your, you're
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  never going to be more excited about it.
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  If you think this resonates with you.
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  Then when you walk away from the seminar and if you can go back
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  and start to do some of this on your campus and put a plan
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  together, even realizing it's July and some of your planning
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  is already done. But putting some planning
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  together, that is not going to happen in one year, but maybe in
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  three years if you're consistent with it.
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  This is the, this is the right time to start.
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  OK, here's one more AI piece. I asked him to give me a
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  clipboard with some words on it. So it's another AI piece.
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  This is the game plan #1 There is no silver bullet, you know,
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  and, and, and I think the idea here, and Jim said we want to
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  walk away with an idea or two. We can take back the campus.
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  And maybe you were coming to this hoping.
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  I'm going to figure out what that one thing is of how we
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  connect to the community. And there is no one thing.
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  It's, it's no one thing. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot of
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  different things. So that's the first piece #2 you
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  have to be intentional. You have to be intentional about
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  what you're doing with connecting the community.
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  A quick example, when I was at Kansas Wesleyan and we were over
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  break, our teams, the cafeteria was closed and our teams would
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  have to be fed. And we would, they would go to
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  some of the, you know, restaurants in town and, and get
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  some food and bring it back to campus.
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  And we would eat, they would eat in the, in the basketball
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  facility or somewhere and have their meal there.
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  And I thought, well, ma'am, what if we ate in the restaurants?
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  You know, you can't always do that during the year when time
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  is crunching. But over break, these, these
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  guys are doing nothing but practicing basketball and
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  sleeping and eating and playing video games and practicing
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  basketball. So what if we, what if we send
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  them into the community for those meals?
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  So now you're going to have 14 basketball players sitting in
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  the community among families and, and, and, and other diners.
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  And they're going to make an impression and they're going to
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  make a connection. And so we changed what we were
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  doing a little more inconvenient maybe, maybe.
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  But I think the payoff is there where they were going into the
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  community and they were, they were eating there and people
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  were observing. Now I, I will say people are
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  going to observe them. So it it's also a great life
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  lesson for a chance for them to realize what it's like to eat in
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  a restaurant, what you need to do.
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  A little story. We had a first pitch dinner in
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  January and we had a big crowd on the lower floor and there was
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  an upper deck. And there was about 35 of our
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  baseball players whose families didn't come, were kind of
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  sitting there in a group. And afterwards of the one of the
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  women that was running the event servers came up to me and said,
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  are you the athletic director at UIS?
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  And I thought, OK, this is not going to be good.
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  Yes, I am. I admitted.
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  And she said, you know, I went up there and those student
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  athletes all cleared their own places and put the stuff in the
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  bus area. They pushed all the chairs back
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  in. I've never seen that before.
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  I was so impressed with your group.
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  So your student athletes when they go in the community, have
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  an opportunity to make an impression.
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  Let's just, you just need to make sure it's a good impression
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  number. The the next item.
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  It's got to be persistent. You know what, you've got to be
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  persistent. Example here.
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  When I was at Niagara, I got to Niagara, I'd been in Xavier
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  previously and we had a great run in in at Xavier and we got
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  to 98% of the capacity. We sold 7000 season tickets.
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  My last year we did, we sold 1000 new season tickets that
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  made us buy a cake and celebrate because you don't do that every
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  day. And I got to Niagara and I said,
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  can I have the, what's the season ticket order list?
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  Can I, can I see it? And they hand it to me to fit
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  A18 and a half, 11 sheet of paper was 33 names, 70 tickets.
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  That was their entire base that went from 7000 to 70.
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  And that's OK. Well, we're going to get to know
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  these people while we're going to work on building capacity
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  here. And we got to the point in year
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  7, we were at 85% of capacity was sold out, sold out over half
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  of our home games. But it was not a straight line
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  from year one to year seven. It was progress and regression
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  and progress and regression and rethinking that finally got us,
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  finally got us to that goal. And, and the last item is it
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  does take some good fortune. You know, you have to be a
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  little bit lucky again at, at, at Niagara, our first seven
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  games that we targeted and worked at and had sold out
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  crowds, We lost every one of those games.
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  And it was over a period of three years.
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  We just lost those games. And it wasn't, they were great
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  games. We just didn't win.
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  And you want you want the crowd to walk away seeing I really
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  made a difference and we were unable to do that.
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  And then finally the tide turned and we had some good fortune and
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  that led to led to kind of the next step forward.
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  Before I share the ideas, I want to couple share a couple of
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  planning thoughts. The 1st is when I'm planning my
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  strategy, I like to do it in the arena or in the stadium or at
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  the site, whatever that best venue is because I want to sit
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  there, especially that first meeting when I'm sitting down
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  with what I call the action team, the people that are really
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  going to make it happen. And I want everyone to be on the
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  same page of what we're trying to get to and what it looks like
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  and what it feels like to have that full house.
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  I mean, that's to pay off that feeling.
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  So I wanted to try to, you know, begin with the end in mind.
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  As Stephen Covey said, I want to develop that thought process.
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  What is it? What does it, what does it smell
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  like? What does it taste like?
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  What are people eating? What's the concessions?
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  What's happening? What kinds of groups are here?
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  Where are the students sitting? What music's playing?
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  What's going on? So I like to have that
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  conversation in the beginning so that we're all on the same page.
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  So I like to plan right here in the middle of the rain.
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  And you can see this is an high school because we only have two
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  people working here. That's the full staff.
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  So that's that's there. We are trying to get it done,
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  the two of us. And we're right in the middle of
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  the Kansas Western Arena. The other part is, and this is a
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  little bit, Jim recognizes board is something he's done as well.
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  You can't do it by yourself. You got to get help.
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  You need help. And so I think there are two
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  groups to get help. One is an advisory team.
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  You know, you put together an advisory team that can get
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  together 123 times a year and give you some thoughts about the
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  direction you're headed. I started this when I was at
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  Xavier. We got went and found some
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  people in the community that were marketing focused.
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  We happened to have the VP of marketing for Gibson Greeting
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  Cards, which is headquartered in Cincinnati, who's a who was the
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  Xavier alum. I got him, I got some other
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  folks and we sat around and we talked about what what I shared
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  our direction and they helped widen the vision.
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  I can remember where the the guy from Gibson, Greg said to us at
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  one point, hey, we need to set, we need a little marketing plan.
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  Like we're a basketball team that could win a national
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  championship. And I was so far from that
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  thinking. I mean, I just, you know, when
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  you're in the, in the fight every day, I just didn't have
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  that big vision. And he helped expand our vision
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  and what it might look like those labours not, you know, won
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  the national championship. And, and, but I think they
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  could, and I think we've set, we've helped to set the
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  marketing on the plan and the sales on the plan that that
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  could lead to that. So it, it can help you set the
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  big vision and those, those community members can help you
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  get things done as well. That can increase your, your
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  network. And you might include some
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  people from campus, maybe some from your department, But I
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  think that's really important. And the second is an action
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  team. You got to have an action team.
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  You can pull in some people. We have some coaches on our
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  staff that have great marketing background that I pull in as
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  part of our action team, even though that's not part of their
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  primary responsibility. Might even not be, might even
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  not be their sport. I get some students, I have some
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  student athletes involved. You know, you're a small
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  operation, you got to look for opportunities.
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  So I build an action team because I need to collect the
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  brain power. I think that makes us better.
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  I wasn't going to share this game.
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  They agreed initially, but I I had a phone call the other day
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  from the new football coach at Central Michigan, Matt Drinkel.
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  I hired Matt as the coach at Kansas Wesleyan.
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  He did a great job. Year two took us to the Nii play
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  offs. 2 years later we went back to the play offs, got the host
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  three games and got to the national semifinals and he he
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  did a super job. He went on to become an
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  assistant in Army and he was named the head coach of Central
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  Michigan this past year going into year one.
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  And he called and he said, Mike, I need that grid that you had
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  that you shared with us as we're preparing for the game each
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  week. And this grid really has, this
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  is just a snippet of it really has a bunch of lines to the
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  right or columns to the right that represent each of the home
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  games. And it has a lot more things on
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  the left hand side. There's about 40 different
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  things. And it's in the packet.
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  I've given it to Jim. So it's on the flash drive as a
• 16:58
  reference. But this is just a little piece
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  of it to give you a sense of it so you can see what's what's
• 17:01
  here. He said at our school, they're
• 17:04
  they're just thinking about football as the only way to draw
• 17:07
  people to the games. And when we were at Kansas West
• 17:10
  End, you know, we were figuring out who's going to sing the
• 17:12
  national anthem and who's going to go out and be the honorary,
• 17:15
  the honorary out for the, the coin toss, be the honorary coin
• 17:18
  flipper. And who's going to what are the
• 17:20
  other things that we're going to do and how we're going to tie
• 17:22
  things together. And I want to bring that to
• 17:25
  Central Michigan. And I thought to myself, and,
• 17:28
  and we should all take pride in this.
• 17:29
  Here's an idea and a program that we did at an AI school,
• 17:33
  then an FBS school is calling and saying that's the best
• 17:36
  practice we want to how can we bring that to our institution?
• 17:40
  And I'm sure that people here are doing those kind of things
• 17:43
  as well. But I wanted to share with you
• 17:44
  because it's been a tool that I've used a lot, a lot in my
• 17:47
  career at each each stop to kind of kind of organize things.
• 17:49
  And you'll see some of these things on the left.
• 17:51
  And we'll talk about, you know, a campus partner and a community
• 17:54
  partner and a media sponsor in as part of this presentation as
• 17:58
  well. And how do you know when you get
• 18:00
  there, what is like they say really just the journey, you
• 18:03
  know, you try to improve a little bit every day.
• 18:04
  That's, that's what we're focused on doing.
• 18:06
  And you'll start to see what happens.
• 18:07
  And I have a little pun here that you'll see the signs.
• 18:10
  And this, this to me was one of the signs that we had started to
• 18:13
  make it. You know, we were out there
• 18:14
  trying to get businesses that had marquees to put up messages
• 18:18
  for us during homecoming or the start of the basketball season
• 18:21
  or whenever we had a big game and we're offering tickets and
• 18:23
  other things. But when they started to do it
• 18:25
  on their own, when they put it up on their own, I, I knew we
• 18:29
  had started to make impact in the community.
• 18:31
  And so that's what this represents to me.
• 18:33
  So here's 12 engagement ideas plus a bonus.
• 18:36
  I'm going to run through these kind of quickly, but just, and
• 18:39
  I'm sure there's some other good ideas here.
• 18:41
  And I hope at the end when we have some time for, for
• 18:43
  questions or comments that if other people have some other
• 18:45
  engagement strategies, you could share those as well.
• 18:48
  And again, we're going to try to put all these in place at Uis
• 18:51
  this year. But the, the first one is to
• 18:52
  have a, a community partner at each one of our games.
• 18:55
  We have a corporate partner. We give them different assets as
• 18:58
  part of that, but we also seek out a community partner in our
• 19:00
  big games. And, and you can see on the
• 19:02
  right side, we give them some assets as well.
• 19:04
  But I need a community partner that's really going to be
• 19:06
  involved, that their leadership's going to commit to
• 19:08
  be there, that they're going to get their board involved, that
• 19:11
  they're going to work to get people to the games, that we'll
• 19:14
  probably give them an opportunity to make some money.
• 19:16
  Maybe it's a percentage of ticket sales or a chance to
• 19:18
  table and sell something to the game so they can raise some
• 19:21
  money for the causes that are important to them.
• 19:23
  But I want to do that, and I want to do that.
• 19:25
  I do this in kind of a competitive way as well, because
• 19:27
  I say, all right, and whichever nonprofit, whichever community
• 19:30
  partner sells the most gets the most people to our game this
• 19:33
  year. We're going to give you first
• 19:35
  pick of the games next year. So I'm always trying to set up a
• 19:37
  little competition to use the athletic world to try to make it
• 19:41
  a little better. So we set up a community partner
• 19:43
  for every game. So we have a corporate partner,
• 19:45
  a community partner, we have a media partner and we'll talk a
• 19:47
  little bit later about a campus partner as as key elements of
• 19:50
  our of our big games. The community service, you know,
• 19:54
  we we started doing what I call intentional community service,
• 19:57
  but I got the Kansas Wesley and you know, we had some different.
• 20:00
  This is this is talking about schools.
• 20:01
  We have some different schools that would call coaches to say,
• 20:04
  hey, could you bring your kids out if you bring your student
• 20:06
  athletes out to, to talk to our students about this or if you
• 20:09
  bring them out for this family night that we're doing.
• 20:12
  And I saw it happening occasionally and not at every
• 20:15
  school, but at some schools. And so we, I decided to do it
• 20:18
  intentionally. I went to the Superintendent, it
• 20:20
  happened to match up great. There were there are 10 or there
• 20:23
  are 8 elementary schools that are public and two private ones
• 20:26
  in the community. We had enough, we had the right
• 20:27
  number of teams to match up. So every school had a partner
• 20:31
  team or two based on kind of the size of the of the teams.
• 20:35
  And I challenged the coaches to get in there three times a year.
• 20:38
  Take your students there. It has doesn't that be the same
• 20:40
  group of students or all the students?
• 20:42
  But take your students there intentionally 3 times of the
• 20:44
  year. And it was easy there.
• 20:45
  They do a little fitness thing in the fall.
• 20:47
  They call it a marathon where 26 days they walk a mile before
• 20:50
  school and different people can go cheer for them.
• 20:52
  Our student athletes would do that.
• 20:54
  We do that. There was some kind of a parent
• 20:56
  student kind of event in the evenings and our student
• 20:59
  athletes would go help set up and run some of the games.
• 21:02
  We would all, we often would go in to read in March, Doctor
• 21:06
  Seuss Day or some other time in March.
• 21:07
  And that was a good thing. So it was pretty easy to do
• 21:09
  those to do those three things. And then we would invite those
• 21:11
  kids to come to campus for a game.
• 21:13
  And maybe the women's basketball team would invite them to
• 21:16
  women's basketball game. But if you're the golf team,
• 21:17
  probably not going to invite them to a golf match.
• 21:19
  They would host them also at a basketball game or soccer game
• 21:22
  or some other event. But getting kids on campus I
• 21:24
  think is really important. It it's certainly important to
• 21:27
  me. I'm a first generation college
• 21:29
  graduate. My, one of my very first
• 21:31
  experiences with a college was going to an athletic event.
• 21:34
  And so I think that if we can get kids on campus, they can,
• 21:37
  they can start to aspire of what it could be.
• 21:39
  So, but this intentional community service, we had every,
• 21:42
  we'd have every elementary school, you know, and it was
• 21:44
  working before where the coaches that were maybe had kids in
• 21:46
  school, they were the ones getting called.
• 21:48
  But now every team was involved. And it was initially like our
• 21:52
  soccer teams were involved with the kind of the more affluent
• 21:55
  school where maybe their kids went to school.
• 21:59
  But as we looked at the demographic, there were a couple
• 22:01
  schools that had big Hispanic populations and our soccer teams
• 22:05
  had large Hispanic populations. And those students weren't
• 22:08
  really being served. And so we started, we matched
• 22:10
  our soccer teams up with those with those schools.
• 22:12
  The affluent people weren't very happy to start, but we moved
• 22:15
  them. We moved them over there, and it
• 22:17
  was a much better fit. It gave them great role models.
• 22:20
  So there's great opportunities to do that with intentional
• 22:22
  community service. Also in community service, I
• 22:26
  require each of our staff members, our full time staff
• 22:30
  members to get involved with a different nonprofit.
• 22:33
  So again, we've got to be intentional about getting off
• 22:36
  campus and athletics. I think we can do it.
• 22:38
  And so I I said, look, you need to be involved with a nonprofit
• 22:40
  in our community. You don't have to serve on the
• 22:42
  board. You don't have to do.
• 22:43
  But if they have an event, I want you to volunteer to be the
• 22:45
  event. Is there something that is a
• 22:46
  cause for you? I just hired a new baseball
• 22:48
  coach and he came into the meeting with three causes that
• 22:51
  were important to him because of what his things his family had
• 22:54
  experienced and he things he wants to get involved with.
• 22:57
  And I thought that was great. And that's exactly what we're
• 22:59
  looking for. So imagine the impact because
• 23:02
  you're going to connect with with the other people that are
• 23:04
  serving that nonprofit of 25 people, which is about the size
• 23:08
  of our full time staff out in the community, all involved in a
• 23:11
  different nonprofit. You know, by the end of by the
• 23:13
  end of the year, the impact of that I think is going to be
• 23:15
  significant. And we saw that success at
• 23:18
  Kansas West End. You know, they ended up getting
• 23:20
  invited to be on the board, even going back to the schools.
• 23:23
  Our kids were our coaches were invited to be on on some of the
• 23:26
  advisory boards of the schools. So the connections became really
• 23:29
  meaningful and the they were able to grow their network,
• 23:32
  which I thought was really, really important.
• 23:34
  So the impact has been great and the United Way for us has been a
• 23:36
  great kind to it. They know about every nonprofit,
• 23:39
  what happened in our case, the CEO, the nonprofit is a former
• 23:41
  women's basketball coach at our institution.
• 23:43
  She came in and talked to our at our head coaches meeting.
• 23:46
  She said, I'll be the concierge. If you need help figuring out
• 23:49
  where you want to serve, what you want to do, I'll help
• 23:51
  connect you. And so that I think that is
• 23:54
  there's an eager opportunities. And so I think that's something
• 23:56
  that we're going to pay off. You have to model that from the
• 23:58
  top. You have to be involved with
• 24:00
  someone from the top #1 and then #2 you have to.
• 24:04
  I ended up we talked about it in year 1 and now as I've had the
• 24:08
  chance to do the everyone's reviews and work on their annual
• 24:11
  roles for next year, being involved with a non profit is on
• 24:15
  their list of annual roles with a deadline of December every
• 24:18
  full time staff member. So we're, we're putting it in
• 24:21
  play in what our expectation is. Another strategy I've had is
• 24:28
  really try, try to take advantage of rivalries.
• 24:30
  You know, rivalries are part of the fabric of college athletics.
• 24:33
  They're really some of the best things that we have.
• 24:35
  So how can we use that to bring in corporate partners, but also
• 24:39
  to bring in the community? And I've, there's a couple
• 24:41
  examples of ones that I've helped start here.
• 24:44
  I had a chance to work on the Xavier UC rivalry.
• 24:46
  Initially we did one with, with Canisius in, in Niagara, which
• 24:49
  turned out has turned out to be terrific.
• 24:51
  And we did one, we've done one at Kansas Western and Bethany.
• 24:54
  And, and I have to give Dane Pavlovich, who was the AD at at
• 24:58
  Bethany, the credit for this, but it was his thought to tie in
• 25:01
  some community ideas with it as well.
• 25:03
  So it's not just a win or a loss of the tennis team that's going
• 25:07
  to pick up points in here. But we also had three community
• 25:10
  service things. We had a competitive blood drive
• 25:12
  in the winter. Whichever school had more donors
• 25:14
  got a point in in the in the showdown.
• 25:18
  We had a reading program in March.
• 25:20
  Whichever school had more students read the kids in March
• 25:23
  got a point in the showdown. And then we ran a football from
• 25:26
  one campus to the other. We're only 16 miles apart.
• 25:28
  Was a student athlete advisory project and so we would run the
• 25:31
  1st 8 miles if it was in the way.
• 25:33
  Game handed off in a space to Bethany and they would finish
• 25:36
  the other 8 miles. And in both cases, we were
• 25:38
  fundraising for a community cause in both of our
• 25:40
  communities. And, and in that case, if we
• 25:43
  completed it, we gave each team a point, but it tied in the
• 25:46
  community more than it tied in than just than just the wins and
• 25:51
  losses. And we're also able to get it in
• 25:52
  this case, First Bank Kansas, a corporate partner involved that
• 25:55
  was really on the sideline. We gave them one of our best
• 25:58
  assets and they because we wanted somebody that would come
• 26:00
  in and really connect this with the community and they were
• 26:03
  willing to do that by giving away tickets to their by buying
• 26:06
  tickets and giving them away to their, to their customers and
• 26:09
  doing things in their, in their bank branches and other things.
• 26:12
  So they were a terrific partner and really helped us move it
• 26:14
  forward. Going back to when I was at
• 26:16
  Xavier, we had a partnership with Skyline Chile on the
• 26:18
  shootout. And frankly, we took, we could
• 26:21
  have sold it for more money to another sponsor, but we, we
• 26:24
  retained it with Skyline Schiller because they really
• 26:26
  understood the robbery and they were willing to invest in
• 26:29
  billboards and, and, and promotional items and in store
• 26:32
  contest to make it a bigger deal.
• 26:34
  And so I think anytime you can find that, that's to your
• 26:36
  benefit. I think you have to be seen in
• 26:40
  your community. And here's 2 concepts with that.
• 26:42
  Number one, you have to attend public events.
• 26:45
  You have to be out there at chamber events.
• 26:47
  When there's the state of the city, you've got to be there.
• 26:50
  You, you, you have to be there as the leader, the AD, you had
• 26:53
  other staff members that go as well.
• 26:55
  Go to a lot of chamber events. I try to host them on campus.
• 26:58
  We're going to do one this year. And I don't know, this is a
• 27:00
  picture of a chamber event. That's our Intermedibra, by the
• 27:03
  way, right here in the front with the cap on who's now my
• 27:06
  boss, our vice chancellor of student Affairs.
• 27:09
  But we, we're going to host one. And they're kind of like this,
• 27:13
  right? They're just food and
• 27:14
  conversation. We're, I'm, I'm running 9
• 27:17
  miniature golf holes and we're going to use a ballroom and set
• 27:21
  those up around the outside. And I've got eight other
• 27:23
  partners on campus, you know, the Career Center,
• 27:26
  entrepreneurial center, Business School.
• 27:28
  They're each take one of the holes and do a little giveaways
• 27:30
  and make it fun. And we're going to do something
• 27:32
  different than than what normally happens.
• 27:35
  And we're, we're doing on a day of a basketball game.
• 27:36
  So we're going to try to get them to the Rockers basketball
• 27:38
  game that, that day as well, the double header that we're
• 27:40
  hosting. So anyway, that's, that's, I
• 27:42
  think it's important. You got to be out there.
• 27:44
  You got to be seen in your community and #2 is there's a
• 27:47
  lot in our community. Other places I've been of, of
• 27:50
  different opportunities to get items for a raffle or for a
• 27:55
  sign, an auction, that type of thing.
• 27:56
  And I think it's really important.
• 27:57
  I, I, nothing makes me more upset is when I go to the sign
• 28:02
  on auction items and I see something from the University of
• 28:04
  Illinois and the Cardinals and the Bears and there's nothing
• 28:07
  from the UIS in our own hometown.
• 28:09
  So we have set up, we have bought, we purchased some
• 28:13
  baskets and we have a plan in place.
• 28:15
  I have a staff member that does that.
• 28:16
  Whenever we get that request for one, we're ready to go and we
• 28:19
  actually seek them out. When I see in the, in the
• 28:22
  newspaper here on the radio that someone's having an auction, we
• 28:24
  give them a call and say, would you like an auction item from,
• 28:27
  from UIS? And we proactively get ourselves
• 28:29
  there because you have to be seen in your community.
• 28:33
  Two other things, public speaking, that can be a great
• 28:37
  asset. I think it's an old fashioned
• 28:39
  thing to go out and talk to the Rotary and the Qantas.
• 28:41
  And sometimes you wonder when you're there with, you know, 13
• 28:44
  Lions Club members, how impactful you are.
• 28:46
  But it's something that I really believe in.
• 28:48
  I do it a lot myself. I have a an intern on our staff
• 28:52
  that works on lining up our coaches to go out to talk to
• 28:55
  groups. It can really be beneficial.
• 28:57
  I met a guy who is a marketing person with one of our future
• 29:00
  corporate partners at one of those events.
• 29:02
  And when we sat down in his office to outline what he might
• 29:05
  want to do, I said, I want to introduce you to my boss, the
• 29:07
  CEO. So I went to meet the CEO.
• 29:09
  He said, oh, I heard you speak at this other event that you
• 29:12
  were at as well and so where we were 3/4 away to getting the
• 29:15
  sponsorship done before we even started.
• 29:17
  So I think that can be really helpful and I think also we can
• 29:20
  take those groups and get them to your games at Pacific.
• 29:23
  What we did with the Rotary Club is we took two communities
• 29:25
  stocked in the Modesto and they had a competition between the
• 29:28
  two and who could sell more tickets for the Rotary night
• 29:30
  game. And we set up a contest as well.
• 29:33
  There's a free throw shooting contest between the Stockton and
• 29:36
  and the Modesto group and they were raising money for the
• 29:39
  ticket through the tickets they sold for a charity that they
• 29:42
  cared about as well. So that's another opportunity to
• 29:44
  to really twist it and make it and make those speaking
• 29:47
  engagements something. The other thing I challenge our
• 29:49
  coaches with is I want us to be known as the expert for the
• 29:52
  sport in our community. So I want them to host a a
• 29:55
  coaches clinic. I want them to get the top high
• 29:57
  school coaches there to participate in that clinic if
• 30:01
  it's legal by NC rules. And I also want to I want to
• 30:05
  invite other coaches. They have great networks.
• 30:07
  Invite a marquee coach, find a marquee coach is willing to come
• 30:10
  in and talk and make sure that we are the place that is the
• 30:14
  expert on their sport in our community.
• 30:17
  I also as part of our working with our coaches, you know, one
• 30:21
  of the things on their list of goals, I want them to have a
• 30:24
  face to face meeting with every high school coach in our county
• 30:27
  every year. I want someone on their staff,
• 30:29
  preferably the head coach to be talking to the head coach from
• 30:31
  every, every high school in, in our county because it's
• 30:34
  important that we know who is in our community and that they know
• 30:38
  who we are. And my impression my, and from
• 30:42
  my first year of experience that had not happened up to that
• 30:44
  point. I think the members membership
• 30:47
  organizations are a good way to make connections.
• 30:50
  Chambers are great. These are all the chambers that
• 30:52
  were at Pacific, by the way. It was a, we had a, a
• 30:55
  smorgasbord of chambers to choose from for different
• 30:57
  events. And we did, we did lots of
• 30:58
  different things, receptions and other things.
• 31:00
  But I think getting chambers involved are great.
• 31:02
  We in in Springfield, our Chamber of sponsoring our first
• 31:06
  our tip off dinner this year where we brought it back last
• 31:09
  year and we're going to do it next year and they're going to
• 31:10
  help us make it a bigger deal. The CVB is one that's always
• 31:13
  been working with us. We were able to get some a
• 31:17
  little bit of cash from them and some other things for a
• 31:19
  sponsorship package. You know, they appreciate the
• 31:21
  fact that we're bringing people into the community.
• 31:23
  You know, we provide some tickets for them to reward their
• 31:25
  volunteers, which is an important element that they
• 31:28
  have. I mentioned the, the economic
• 31:30
  development groups like the Springfield sang and Growth
• 31:33
  Alliance. They're often a small staff of
• 31:35
  people I've found in different communities, but they have a
• 31:37
  powerful board. They have usually have the most
• 31:39
  powerful people in the community on their board.
• 31:42
  So I think that's a great group to get to know and have them
• 31:44
  host their board members at your game.
• 31:46
  I've worked with our home golf course before to invite their
• 31:49
  members out, have something at their club and then invite them
• 31:51
  out to A to a game. So I think those are some other
• 31:54
  ways to engage with the community and I love to engage
• 31:57
  with the other local communities, whether it be we've
• 31:59
  done the Springfield night for sure, but there's other
• 32:02
  communities around us as well, Rochester, for example, in our
• 32:06
  case, or or Chatham or other places, Williamsville where we
• 32:09
  can do other connections. And so it's, you know, it's kind
• 32:12
  of this list on the left hand side of figuring out.
• 32:14
  You can't just declare it Williamsville night and expect
• 32:17
  Williamsville people to come. You have to have a strategy.
• 32:20
  You know, you have to have a group put together.
• 32:21
  You find that you find a leader, you honor the mayor, you get
• 32:25
  maybe a Rotary Club or someone from that community involved and
• 32:29
  you can put something together to have a really good, really
• 32:32
  good event tied in with that with that school.
• 32:34
  And again, this goes back to the idea of on that laundry list of,
• 32:38
  you know, 40 some things to have success.
• 32:41
  You know, you, you want to you want to do a lot of these things
• 32:44
  to make your games impactful. When I was at Xavier, we were we
• 32:48
  were taking the strategy of trying to go they were they drew
• 32:51
  6000 fans a game When I got there, we sold out one game
• 32:54
  every other year. It was AUC game.
• 32:56
  And then we put the planning together on focus on specific
• 33:00
  games and we were able to grow it next year by focusing on just
• 33:04
  a few games. We sold two out.
• 33:05
  Cincinnati was away. The third year Cincinnati was
• 33:07
  back home. We sold out five games.
• 33:09
  And we got to the point where we sold out 11:50 and 98% of the
• 33:12
  capacity. So we were and lots of other
• 33:14
  good things happened. You know, there was a NTA
• 33:16
  tournament run in there, but there's also a losing season.
• 33:19
  I mean, there were a lot of other factors.
• 33:20
  It's not just, you know, the magic, the magic marketing that
• 33:23
  we did, but one of the things that happened in year 3 is we
• 33:27
  sold out the Fordham game on a Saturday night.
• 33:30
  And I had colleagues call me and said, you sold out the Fordham
• 33:33
  game. Nope, nobody comes to see
• 33:35
  Fordham. How did you sell the Fordham
• 33:36
  game out? What was they're not a rival.
• 33:38
  What was the secret? And we sat down and we looked at
• 33:40
  it and we took and did an analysis.
• 33:42
  And that's something I don't think we do enough of in our
• 33:44
  business. Often times after the game ends,
• 33:47
  we're we're off to the next game.
• 33:48
  We don't, we don't do an analysis, but we did in that
• 33:51
  case. And we found out there were 26
• 33:53
  things that we did on that list. We had 26 things that we did
• 33:56
  that led to that sell out. So that became our rallying cry
• 33:59
  and continues today as we want to try to do 20 things on each
• 34:03
  of those games that we're targeting.
• 34:04
  And that will ensure that we have a good game.
• 34:07
  Now, sometimes the community partners, someone else let you
• 34:09
  down. They don't come through the way
• 34:10
  you thought. But if you're doing 20 of them,
• 34:12
  you have a chance to to try to make that happen.
• 34:14
  So that's that's kind of the focus and and what we try to do
• 34:20
  there. A couple more ideas here.
• 34:21
  If you're a pro sports town, what we've done is invite the
• 34:23
  pro athletes as our guests to a game.
• 34:25
  Sometimes they have charities, often they have charity.
• 34:27
  So you find out what the charity is and maybe that's an angle to
• 34:29
  get them to come to your games. Sometimes we get a radio partner
• 34:32
  for a game and they can help bring a pro athlete or we find a
• 34:35
  former pro athlete because I've worked in some bigger
• 34:37
  communities in Springfield. You know, I've worked in, in
• 34:39
  Seattle, in Baltimore. And it's a little tougher in
• 34:42
  those communities to come up with different strategies.
• 34:44
  But that's one that has been helpful.
• 34:46
  And I always look for who can we honor in our games?
• 34:48
  What, what can we do? Anytime someone's being honored
• 34:51
  on our campus or in our community, I want to get them to
• 34:53
  our game to honor them at at a time out.
• 34:55
  So we're trying always to honor them and we try to involve them.
• 34:59
  You know, Debbie Antonelli shooting free throws here as
• 35:00
  part of the time she was honored.
• 35:02
  You know, you can do what you can honor a fireman and
• 35:05
  policeman, but if you get them involved with like a, a tug of
• 35:08
  war guns versus hoses kind of thing, then that could really
• 35:11
  add value to the event as well and make it more impactful.
• 35:14
  So those are the 12 community engagement activities and the
• 35:17
  promise to extras are this. When I when you look at any TV
• 35:22
  station, I was trying to get some additional media coverage.
• 35:24
  They usually have a list of all of their staff and you can read
• 35:27
  their BIOS. And this is Alexander's bio.
• 35:30
  And we've done this for everybody in the community.
• 35:32
  She's not a sports person, she's an anchor, but you can see was
• 35:34
  she's a member of a tennis team. So we have her marked.
• 35:37
  The next time we're doing a promotion with tennis or we have
• 35:40
  a fundraiser that involves tennis, we're going to try to
• 35:43
  involve her because we've noted that she has a connection with
• 35:46
  with tennis gone has connection with a number of non profits
• 35:50
  animal shelter women in excellence group.
• 35:52
  So again, we have a note of that.
• 35:54
  So when we start doing a promotion with one of those
• 35:56
  areas, we're going to involve her.
• 35:58
  So we you know, it's always a challenge to get that television
• 36:00
  coverage that the the sports cast have shrunk so much.
• 36:03
  So we're we look for other opportunities with other people
• 36:06
  on air to try to connect them to things that we're doing on
• 36:09
  campus. And now I have three quick
• 36:12
  campus engagement strategies plus the secret sauce.
• 36:17
  You know, I, I work with, we, we talked about the, the game day
• 36:20
  partner that this the covert sponsor partner, the community
• 36:23
  partner. I also have a try to find a
• 36:25
  campus partner as well. Schools or colleges are great.
• 36:28
  I try to work with those as campus partners.
• 36:30
  We did, we did some of that at UIS this past year.
• 36:32
  We have 4 colleges and tie them in with our games.
• 36:35
  Career development can do it. I've done with alumni where they
• 36:37
  offer a just kind of ticket to their alumni in the region and
• 36:40
  do a special reception. I've done with development where
• 36:42
  they invite their top donors to come in a game and have a
• 36:44
  reception for them. So I'm looking for that campus
• 36:46
  engagement partner as well and trying to connect them and
• 36:49
  providing assets to them that would be helpful.
• 36:52
  So I just like we did with the community partner or our
• 36:54
  corporate partner, you know, we're going to try to interview
• 36:56
  them at the Dean on our stream. We're going to promote the fact
• 37:00
  that in this case, the College of Business at Pacific did a
• 37:04
  great job of their athletes that were members of the team that
• 37:07
  are from the College of Business.
• 37:08
  We're going to give them public address announcements.
• 37:10
  We're going to invite them, we're going to invite their
• 37:12
  staff to the game. Sometimes they'll provide some
• 37:15
  other asset like an anthem singer or something of that
• 37:17
  sort. So you know, we want to invite
• 37:19
  them and and treat them just like any of our other partners
• 37:22
  as well. So we have campus partners that
• 37:24
  are tied in, and then there are student groups.
• 37:27
  And with the student groups, we really look for opportunities to
• 37:29
  tie them in with whatever the theme might be for the game or
• 37:32
  what other promotion might be. So if we're doing a breast
• 37:35
  cancer awareness event and we can go to the group of the
• 37:38
  organization deals with nursing students, well, that's a great
• 37:41
  tie in and we want to try to put that together.
• 37:44
  So we try to create that synergy as often as we can.
• 37:47
  The other thing I've learned is that students are not all the
• 37:52
  same. You know, there's the
• 37:53
  traditional undergrad, but when you're trying to reach the grad
• 37:56
  students, they're at a different age, they have different needs.
• 37:59
  Sometimes they're more likely to have a significant other.
• 38:01
  So we put packages together where they could bring a guest.
• 38:04
  When I was at Pacific, we were really trying to get the
• 38:06
  pharmacy students to get out of their, their bubble of studying
• 38:09
  for pharmacy and get them over to a game and worked harder.
• 38:12
  And we had to pick our very best game and we had to put a
• 38:15
  promotion together and work with the pharmacy executives to give
• 38:17
  them a reception and, and we had some success getting them to
• 38:21
  come to the game through extra effort.
• 38:23
  So I think that, but, but you have to think about each of
• 38:25
  those groups somewhat differently.
• 38:29
  And the secret sauce is when you can tie it all together.
• 38:31
  I mentioned the, you know, the hospital sponsor tied in with
• 38:34
  breast cancer awareness, tied in with the nursing students.
• 38:36
  When you can get those aligned, it's really good business and
• 38:41
  the chamber engineering and, and businesses in the community that
• 38:45
  are tied with engineering. If you can tie them together,
• 38:47
  it's really impactful. That's that that's when the
• 38:50
  synergy really develops and, and, and the secret sauce is
• 38:53
  really there and it becomes a terrific event.
• 38:56
  You know, and you know, this is a lots of thoughts and a lot of
• 39:00
  work and a long presentation. You might think about why go
• 39:03
  through all the trouble? Why do we want to go through the
• 39:05
  trouble here? This, by the way, is a picture
• 39:07
  of a front porch. I'm trying to get that we're the
• 39:09
  front porch of the university. So this is a Indianapolis 500
• 39:12
  front porch, but it's a front porch that none the less.
• 39:15
  But why, why do we go through the trouble?
• 39:17
  And I'll tell you why I do it #1 it's that game day feeling.
• 39:20
  When you're at the game day and you know you've really made a
• 39:22
  difference and the crowd is there and there's synergy and
• 39:25
  there's energy because of the crowd and not forced, then you
• 39:29
  know you've made a difference. And, and that's one of the
• 39:32
  paydays for me to the community feeling.
• 39:34
  When you're talking in the community and run into people
• 39:36
  and they're excited about what's going on with your athletic
• 39:38
  program, that's that's a big piece as well.
• 39:42
  Three, just the pride, the pride on campus.
• 39:44
  I think that's an important piece as well.
• 39:46
  And this highlight the thing I think is most important.
• 39:48
  You know, right now in our in, in, in in our campuses, you have
• 39:52
  a question what the value for everything is, what's what's
• 39:55
  going on? It's a tough time, particularly
• 39:57
  with small schools out there right now.
• 39:58
  What's what's the value? Why are we investing in
• 40:01
  athletics? And we're investing for two
• 40:02
  reasons. One is the great experience
• 40:04
  providing our student athletes the life changing experience
• 40:07
  that we are that allows them to develop and grow.
• 40:10
  And become great young men and women and ready to take your
• 40:12
  place in society. So we have that aspect, but we
• 40:15
  also have, we are the best opportunity, I believe, to
• 40:18
  connect with the community. We have the best chance to
• 40:22
  connect with the community and bring them to our campus.
• 40:24
  And that is so valuable today. So I think we need to play that
• 40:27
  up. We need to do it in an
• 40:29
  aggressive way and play that up as well because that's something
• 40:32
  that can't be done by other spots.
• 40:33
  The biology department is going to have a hard time doing that.
• 40:36
  We and athletics can really be successful here.
• 40:39
  So I think that's an important thing as well because we really
• 40:41
  are the front porch of the college.
• 40:43
  We're the group that's out in front.
• 40:45
  So I think that's I think that's important and I'd always like to
• 40:50
  share a reading recommendation. Chase the Lion, I have found is
• 40:53
  a good book. It really talks about are your
• 40:56
  dreams big enough? Or really in this phrase, are
• 40:59
  your goals big enough? Are you really, when you think
• 41:02
  about community engagement, are you setting your sights high
• 41:04
  enough because you want to have something that is so
• 41:09
  groundbreaking that it creates excitement and gets people
• 41:13
  behind it in a great way. So your dream should be big
• 41:16
  enough that it scares you big enough that it, that it, it, you
• 41:19
  know, then you know your goals are high enough.
• 41:22
  So Mark's book is a good read. I actually brought it with me on
• 41:25
  the trip because I'm kind of rereading it as we're finalizing
• 41:28
  our goals for the upcoming year. I want to make sure they're
• 41:29
  going to scare us. I want to make sure we're going
• 41:31
  to go chase the lion and not have the lion chase us.
• 41:34
  I appreciate your time. I know a lot of friends here.
• 41:36
  Thanks for giving me your getting.
• 41:38
  Let me to get things started this morning.
• 41:39
  I do want to see if there are some questions or some other
• 41:42
  suggestions of some community engagements.
• 41:44
  You know, I mentioned 12, Maybe you can make it a Baker's dozen
• 41:47
  or a few more people. Have some other ideas on things
• 41:50
  that you've done that you can share with others here that
• 41:52
  might be impactful over here. With non.
• 42:12
  Profits effects maybe someone from not raising a lot of us are
• 42:14
  trying to do the wealth. How many of your help?
• 42:15
  Well, we do it in a way that we do it in a way where it's just a
• 42:17
  portion of the tickets that they sell that really does that or
• 42:20
  they set them up into things. So it's, it's incremental
• 42:22
  revenue that helps us. And I think that at least my, my
• 42:28
  read of the situation is the university has been more
• 42:31
  impressed with the connections that have been made than they
• 42:34
  have been with concerned about the other thing and, and
• 42:38
  concerned about losing fundraising dollars.
• 42:41
  The other thing I will say, I mean, you can't do it.
• 42:43
  You can't raise money at every game for, you know, you have to
• 42:46
  be, you have to be cautious of that as well.
• 42:48
  Sometimes it's just the tickets they sell and nobody really
• 42:50
  knows it except for them. And when they come to the game,
• 42:53
  we present them a little mock check on the revenue that they
• 42:56
  that they drove for us. So the general fan isn't really
• 42:59
  isn't really part of it, but the other part is our our in our
• 43:03
  institution, our chancellor, who is our kind of president of our
• 43:07
  of our campus, is very active in the community and she's on the
• 43:10
  board of a lot of these groups. And so it really she really
• 43:12
  takes extra pride in the fact that, you know, she's a board
• 43:15
  member of the group that's trying to do extra things that
• 43:17
  are were the athletic programs trying to do extra things for
• 43:18
  her. But good question.
• 43:21
  Other questions or thoughts or comments?
• 43:29
  My question is, if you work with the community groups you
• 43:32
  mentioned the United way to start of.
• 43:39
  Attach you. I'm assuming there are some of
• 43:40
  those that are magical as a relationship clicks and there
• 43:42
  are others, but it's not so magical.
• 43:44
  Can you talk a little bit about that?
• 43:48
  Then I have one other short comment.
• 43:50
  Sure. Yeah.
• 43:50
  I think, you know, we, we're very honest with the United Way
• 43:52
  about what we're trying to accomplish.
• 43:53
  And they often they tend to, they send us in the direction of
• 43:57
  the of the executive directors that are going to be most
• 44:00
  responsive and most helpful. Now I have had here no, I mean,
• 44:04
  I've heard some groups turn us down.
• 44:05
  They didn't want to do it. They didn't, they couldn't
• 44:07
  commit the time because we're asking for a commitment on their
• 44:09
  end. We're not going to do it unless
• 44:11
  they commit. So we're asking for them to
• 44:13
  commit time resources to make this happen.
• 44:18
  So I've I've heard I've had some no's, but I think the other part
• 44:20
  for me is trying to make it, trying to share what we've done
• 44:24
  and build on what we've done in the past.
• 44:25
  We had four last year. I expect all four of those back.
• 44:28
  They didn't do what some of them were very good, others were not.
• 44:33
  But we're going to give them another shot, and I expect all
• 44:35
  four of those to be back. That anyone who thinks about and
• 44:56
  participate in your camp becomes.
• 45:00
  Continued prospect to take your game so do you know like you or
• 45:03
  someone else in the room utilize the day that you collect with
• 45:12
  camp attendees to try to drive them into either annual giving
• 45:14
  or aspendence to the other game. Yeah.
• 45:15
  Our what what we do, and again, we're maybe at the infancy of
• 45:17
  this, we require our coaches that run camps or we work with
• 45:20
  our coaches that run camps to do a camper night right at the
• 45:23
  start of the season where we bring those campers back,
• 45:25
  recognize them on the field or court, have them wear their camp
• 45:29
  shirts. And then we try to get them tied
• 45:31
  in more strongly with the program.
• 45:33
  We haven't taken the next step, but really we do have have them
• 45:36
  on our database to reach out with more information about that
• 45:38
  team to try to get them back to other games.
• 45:40
  So they become prospective ticket buyers for us for sure
• 45:44
  what we have been inconsistent in our camps.
• 45:46
  We have a number of sports that don't do camps that again, I'm
• 45:49
  putting the the plan in place that every sport needs to have a
• 45:51
  camp. I don't, you can be the tennis
• 45:53
  coach or the golf coach or the, you know, I want everybody to
• 45:55
  have a camp and our coaches have bought in on that as well.
• 45:57
  And so we're going to do camps across the border with every
• 46:00
  every sport that we're doing. Are there other people?
• 46:03
  Yes, go ahead. We do free campers discounted
• 46:11
  adult tickets at camper night. My name is Ryan Tiger.
• 46:18
  I'm Let's direct athletics here in a two year school in Chicago
• 46:22
  Rd. in this down the road. One of the ways that we do this
• 46:27
  is we collect their club information.
• 46:31
  Yeah, they might be attending a summer camp, but we specifically
• 46:34
  asked for their club affiliation.
• 46:36
  And then we asked the club. We invite the club on the campus
• 46:40
  to attend the game for free. And then just like Mike said, be
• 46:44
  able to come to free and then bring a parent and the parent
• 46:46
  has to pay, that sort of a thing.
• 46:48
  But we're interested it it it still is about the high school,
• 46:52
  but the connection here, at least in Chicago with it, with
• 46:55
  the. Club.
• 46:56
  Yeah, that's a really good idea, right?
• 46:57
  Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
• 47:00
  Other thoughts or ideas? Education Day kind of thing,
• 47:02
  yes. What are the pros and cons that
• 47:04
  you've? Learned from.
• 47:14
  That other than make sure you've got plenty anybody.
• 47:17
  Who? Monetize It is a sponsor.
• 47:34
  Grady Ray I'm SSAB down at the School of Nashville to Tribeca.
• 47:39
  We hosted an education game last year for the first time.
• 47:42
  This will be our second annual one we're doing here in
• 47:44
  November, 11 AM to fall. We're bringing 3 to 4 elementary
• 47:50
  schools, about 1000 students. Our, our attendance for our
• 47:54
  regular attendees on our weeknights and whatnot drops a
• 47:57
  little bit obviously, but 1000 plus kids.
• 48:01
  The concern is there's popcorn everywhere.
• 48:03
  We've got a tight, tight port. So we've got to be careful with
• 48:05
  that. But we partner with the local
• 48:07
  adventure Science Center and they do a bunch of athlete
• 48:10
  timeouts and half time they do a bunch of science experiments,
• 48:13
  etcetera, etcetera, using hydrogenise, all that sort of
• 48:16
  stuff. Fire explosions, level 9 yards,
• 48:19
  do a little bit of that, get some kids really interested in
• 48:22
  it and then you start to see them and their families locally
• 48:26
  kind of trickle into other games.
• 48:27
  So it's a great idea. It's worth it's worth the hash
• 48:29
  because this has been a work and it's the wrong time of day, but
• 48:32
  it it seems to be. Effective.
• 48:36
  I've done them with basketball, I've done them with hockey, I've
• 48:38
  done with those sports. I think they're going to be
• 48:40
  effective. I think I always give them a
• 48:42
  bounce back free ticket to get them, try to get them back to
• 48:45
  another game. I think in that case, we've
• 48:48
  given a chance to bring a second guess with them because some of
• 48:51
  those schools that we invite are in a pretty economically
• 48:53
  disadvantaged place. So it's tougher to the, the, the
• 48:56
  fact that the parent may have to pay might be an impediment for
• 48:58
  them to come back. So, but we work with, we, we
• 49:01
  work with that. The other thing we've done I did
• 49:03
  this was in place at Pacific that we have endorsed is that
• 49:07
  we, we, we actually charge them there a bit to come and we
• 49:11
  charge them an extra dollar if they want a campus tour.
• 49:15
  And we have student athletes lead them on a campus tour in
• 49:17
  groups between 20 and 30. And then we have faculty members
• 49:20
  at 16 designated points on campus that takes them through
• 49:24
  campus. So they show up at 9:30, they
• 49:26
  get the campus tour, then they're in the gym by 11 and
• 49:29
  they're ready for the basketball game.
• 49:30
  But it gets them a feel for campus rather than just bust
• 49:33
  them into the arena and back out.
• 49:35
  We want to get them on campus and show them some different
• 49:37
  pieces in this last year we did it.
• 49:39
  I got our Fine Arts folks to have somebody there to play some
• 49:43
  music in the Fine Arts auditorium to really a sense of
• 49:45
  what what campus is about because it goes back to my
• 49:47
  thought about any time we get and most of those kids have
• 49:50
  never been on a college campus before.
• 49:51
  So I think that's I think that's really valuable.
• 49:59
  Well, I appreciate the chance to lead it off.
• 50:01
  It's going to be a great two days.
• 50:02
  Thank you for your attention and let's have a lot of fun the next
• 50:05
  two days. Look forward to talking to
• 50:06
  everybody.