By Brian M. Cain

Brian M. Cain, CAA, is the Athletic Director at North Country Union High School in Newport, Vt., one of the five largest schools in the state. He also serves as a speaker and consultant on peak performance and athletic administration. He can be reached at: bcain@ncuhs.org.

Most of us did not decide to become high school athletic directors because we love marketing. But in an age when promoting your athletic program is an important part of your success, such efforts ultimately get more athletes to participate, motivate coaches, and put fans in the stands.

So how do you find time to develop and implement marketing ideas when your day is already more than full? By handing the job over to your best advocates: your students.

Here at North Country Union High School, most of our marketing plans are implemented by our student athletic council, and that system has worked wonderfully. We've found that parents and community members are strongly influenced by what the student-athletes say and do. In addition, many students are eager to try their hand at marketing, and it gets them even more committed to the school as a whole.

A STRONG COUNCIL
Our athletic council was originally begun so athletes could have a voice in the school and athletic decisions, but it has turned into a much more involved group. The athletic council is now intended to provide an educational experience for students interested in learning about athletic administration and marketing our school.

Our athletic council is open to all students in grades 9 through 12, and most members are athletes, but it's not a requirement. We've found students who aren't athletes are some of the most motivated members because this is their chance to be "part of a team."

To make sure we have only committed members on the council, we require that they apply to the program every year. Interested students fill out an application form the second week of school, which asks for ideas on projects they would like to lead and how they might help promote NCUHS in the community. These ideas then become the foundation for projects for the coming year.

We accept all students who fill out the application, maintain a GPA of 2.0, and are in good behavioral standing. We conduct face-to-face interviews for officer positions, which include president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. We typically have a group of 20 to 30 students that meets once a month. I sit down with the president and vice president regularly to review ideas and progress.

Students usually devote one to four hours a week to their work on the council. They spend the most time on those projects they suggested in their application. I give them a lot of input, but they ultimately decide which ideas to pursue and in what manner. The following are some of the types of projects the NCUHS Athletic Council has excelled in to positively promote themselves and the school.

SCHOOL SPIRIT
One of the most important functions of the council is to develop and implement programs that further school spirit. Students are really great at coming up with ideas that will appeal to their peers, and they have the energy needed to make them successful.

Homecoming Dance: This event is a good fundraiser but more importantly a great spirit raiser. Instead of having the students dress in formal or semi-formal attire, we ask them to dress up in their most school-spirited outfit. Some students even alter their clothes to match our school colors--making one half of their outfit Columbia blue and the other maroon.

The dance also includes a cheering contest that promotes positive sportsmanship in competition. Students usually come up with cheers that are spin-offs on current songs and get very creative in making them fit our school traditions. Participants are evaluated by a panel of school teachers. We then encourage the students to use these cheers at games, furthering positive sportsmanship throughout the year.

Falcon Fridays: Athletic council members are required to sell at least five Falcon Friday blue T-shirts, which the buyer commits to wearing on Fridays to support the school. When I walk down the halls on a Friday, it is great to see a sea of blue shirts and students excited about the weekend contests. The project also bonds students, faculty and staff, parents, community members, and non-athletic students looking for a way to connect to the school.

Annual Get-Together: I challenged the athletic council to come up with an annual event that could bring all students, faculty, staff, and the community together, and the final product was a bonfire and horseshoe tournament where students team up with an adult from the school or community to participate in fun events. The tournament includes all sorts of games, from wiffle ball to horseshoes to a students vs. faculty volleyball match. In addition, all fall sports teams participate in a lip-sync contest judged by the loudest applause. At the end, we hold a bonfire, where students connect with faculty and community members.

Halftime: Our students wanted to come up with halftime entertainment on par with college contests. I told them to come up with ideas that would appeal to the majority of our community members. We now do a halftime soccer shootout against the athletic director. (I think kids are more interested in trying to knock me over than score a goal!) We also conduct field goal contests at halftime of football games.

Basketball games feature the "dress, dribble, and shoot" contest where young kids put on a NCUHS varsity uniform and try to make a lay-up. We also have 3-point contests and events where the participants try to make as many shots in a minute as possible.

The prizes for winning any of these contests is a free large pizza donated by the local pizzeria. Our students and a volunteer faculty member run the events, and the students have had a great experience putting them on.

COMMUNITY SERVICE
We believe our athletes can serve as role models in the community. So I asked the council to help facilitate projects in which our athletes are put in a position to perform community service.

Helmet Safety: Football players on the council led a Helmet-to-Helmet program at our elementary schools, focusing on the importance of bicycle helmet safety. Their message was simple: We would never play football without a helmet, so why would you ride a bike without one? Our athletes gave out helmets donated by a local bike shop. They also passed out tickets to the next home game and fall season posters, which they autographed for the kids.

That day our football coach talked to his team about the importance of modeling positive behavior because young impressionable kids were coming to our game to watch us. Many of those elementary school students who were educated the day before on bike helmet safety came to the football game, and our athletes could see the impact of the project.

Charity Drives: Last year one of our student-athletes was severely injured in an ATV crash. When I approached the athletic council, they had already been thinking about ways they could help. They organized a 24-hour walkathon where at least one person was walking on the track at all times with the goal of raising $2,400, an average of $100 per hour.

The walkathon started at noon on Thursday and concluded at noon on Friday. Many teachers worked with their classes to raise money and then went out to the track for part of their class that day to walk. Students cooked food, played music, and provided encouragement for the walkers.

In the end we raised more than triple our goal, $8,400, for the individual and his family. One student walked the entire 24 hours. He was carried by his classmates for the entire last lap in front of a crowd of about 600 students, teachers, and community members. It was an extremely emotional day.

Other projects have included raising funds for families in need. The council organizes an adopt-a-family project during the holiday season, and they put on a bowling tournament to raise money for a local charity.

PUBLISHING PROJECTS
I also found I could turn many of our publishing projects over to the council. In fact, the students bring a blast of energy to the job of getting information about our sports out to the public.

School Poster: Collaborating with the high school's business/marketing and computer graphics design classes, the athletic council was able to develop a poster project with schedules from each season placed over a photograph of our senior athletes. The teacher of these classes saw it as a tremendous learning opportunity for students and was very supportive. Students solicited advertisements, which were placed on the bottom of the poster, using the opportunity to get "real world" marketing experience based on skills learned in the classroom. The computer graphics design class designed the poster on the computer, another "real world" experience.

The poster project has produced an average of $4,000 per season for the athletic department. It has also served as a motivational source for our athletes to participate in sports through their senior year.

Pocket Schedules: We have a member of our student council type and format a pocket schedule each season. The schedules are then distributed by our athletic council members to local businesses and restaurants, which agree to place them on their counter tops. We have also thought about including information about our sportsmanship expectations or highlighting the accomplishments of our athletes and coaches on these handouts.

Web Site: Today, parents expect their child's high school team to have a Web presence. One member of our council who was very interested in (and good at) Web design and programming took the lead on this project, with a group providing support. To start, I met with the student group for about 30 minutes at a time before or after school to discuss our Web site's content. We also looked at other Web sites to get ideas. Though this project was a big challenge for the students, they exceeded my expectations and developed a Web page that provides information to parents, athletes, and other athletic directors. Before, I had to communicate this information via e-mail, fax, or phone. It is amazing what students will come up with if you give them some direction. You can visit our great Web site at www.ncuhs.org, then click on athletics.

One of the great things about the council's involvement in marketing our athletic program is that it frees me up to do other tasks. But the best thing about the council is that it gives students more educational opportunities. I'm proud to say that a number of our students from last year's council are now studying athletic administration in college. And they are a step ahead of their peers because of their experience here at NCUHS.

Sidebar: PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Sometimes, you can find a student with a specific interest to help out the marketing efforts of your athletic program. A student from our photography class comes to our events and takes as many digital photos as he can. The student photographer then uploads all the photos to www.phanfare.com, a picture-sharing site anyone can access for free. Parents can look at the photos immediately after the game.

This has promoted our athletic program not only within our community, but also statewide. When a team comes to play North Country Union High School, our game program gives them instructions on how to view the photos from the contest. We now have student-athletes from all over the state excited to come play us because they will be able to see photos of themselves on the Web.

That is quite a change in perspective from the days when kids said they would rather not play us because it was such a long drive! This has been a great experience for our student photographer and a big piece of positive marketing for our school.