out for sports than in the previous fall season.
3. Celebrate Your Athletes When the students on your campus know athletics are valued, and you’re not just paying them lip service, then they feel appreciated. If they feel ap- preciated and respected, they want to play. If they feel as if the school is just using them, and they are just unimport- ant spokes in the wheel of your depart- ment, their desire to play dissipates. Initiate an Athlete Of The Week program at your school. This is some- thing I put into place at my previous employer (Capistrano Valley Chris- tian School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.). Again, this is a way to pro- mote athletics while making the stu- dent-athletes feel important. Have coaches nominate a player from their teams based on the previ- ous week’s contests. Make nomina- tions due Monday morning. As the athletic director, you select the one athlete to recognize for the week. An- nounce the Athlete Of The Week in front of the entire school while brag- ging about this person’s accomplish- ments from the week prior. Conduct a short interview with the athlete and place a profile about him or her on your website for the week, which en- courages the selected student to send the link to family and friends.
4. Market Your Programs In Your Community
When the community is excited about athletics, expect more students in your school to want to participate. When their families are discussing athletics in their homes, those stu- dents become motivated to be a part of this popular group. Quite simply, success breeds success, so keep your community informed of everything athletics-related in your school. For better or worse, the community hears and knows about athletics more than math scores. Academic success rates aren’t published on a daily and
coachad.com
weekly basis like sports results are. Understand that athletics serve as a phenomenal promotion tool for the school, so utilize it.
Here are some ways to market your athletic program in your community: • Have coaches report scores after every game to the newspapers. • Use social media (i.e. Twitter and Facebook) on a daily basis. • The community wants to see three things—people, action and results. Keep these three things at the fore- front of your athletics marketing. Do this via pictures (people), storytelling (action) and scores/statistics (results). • Use posters and schedules to pro- mote teams. There are programs out there that pay you to create a sched- ule poster by raising funds from local businesses via advertising. This is a
‘Fan Of The Year’ contest was our highest athletics participation rate in history ...
“ ”
great fundraising opportunity and a perfect way to promote your teams in the community. • Win games. Winning teams re- ceive a lot of free coverage in the local newspapers. • Host Community Appreciation Nights at major sporting events. Each of our home football games for the last five seasons has served as a com- munity outreach event. For instance, we are situated close to a lot of mili- tary families in Temecula, so we host a “Military Appreciation Night.” All military and their families receive free admission to the game and we honor them at halftime. We do the same for teachers and in- vite the media to cover the event. This brings teachers and their families to our games who never have attended in the past. Don’t forget about the young- sters. Have the local Pop Warner foot- ball teams come and play at the half- time of your high school game. This gets youth players and their parents exposed to your program.
vice projects. This garners an appre- ciation of what your athletic program and school are all about by the people who are served.
5. Recruit In The Hallways By following the first four steps, you have completed the hardest part of the job. Now, it’s time to actively increase the number of participants you have on your teams. Teenagers desire to be a part of something larger than themselves. Most are thirsting to belong to a group because they lack connection and meaningful relationships in their lives. They have 800 friends on Facebook— yet feel lonely. However, they aren’t outwardly seeking to belong. A major- ity of them aren’t going to show and communicate this need to belong to a larger group, which means coaches and current players must reach out to them. Have players strike up conver- sations while also taking an interest in what the non-athletes enjoy.
March/April 2013 45
• Brand your logo. You need the community to know your logo as soon as they see it. Think about the images burned in your brain—the golden arch- es, the Nike swoosh, the white text read- ing “Coca-Cola” on a red background or the Mickey Mouse ears. These lo- gos never change. Is your school logo identifiable? Is it burned in the minds of your community members?
Some schools have so many logos
that it’s confusing to people in the community. Ensure logos, colors and uniforms are consistent from team to team. When people see your logo on a hat, sweatshirt, T-shirt or bumper sticker, they should automatically know what school is represented. • Participate in community service
projects. Have your athletes serve others in the community through ser-
The school year after instituting the
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