Originally Posted by
Abominable Gorilla
Alright, I'll buy that, Red. I would agree that painting up does not make anyone in the Blue a bigger fan than anyone else. In that same spirit of agreement, I would like you to consider a few of the things the Blue has been responsible for this year:
The final home game, which was against Boise, allowed high school students in free. This was an idea generated by the Blue in order to increase attendance during the break. The idea was passed on to the athletics department with an extensive justification and agreed upon.
The final two home games in basketball were $2 for high school students. This was an idea that was generated by the Blue and promoted by the Blue. Fliers were posted in eight local schools. The response was very high as I'm sure you saw.
The soccer tournament that was recently held here was promoted by the Blue through fliers in all of the campus housing.
The 5K Dawg Track was in a small part advertised by the Blue through passing out registration forms on campus. I hope they raise a lot of money.
The remaining baseball games have been promoted through the Blue by posting fliers in the local schools as well as at the Ruston baseball fields. The Blue has also been given the magnetic board in the student center which now advertises this weekends baseball games and will continually be updated to reflect current athletic events.
On top of these things, I would like you to consider some of the activities that have been done outside of athletics.
Through my high school, I organized a "career day" which featured WHS alumni that I recruited to come back and speak to current WHS students about what college is like and what their majors are like. This was also an opportunity for WHS alumni that went to Tech (alisha, jonell, and myself) to promote Tech. Did you know that the ratio of engineering students to engineering firms at the job fair is 10:1 here compared to 35:1 at LSU? A lot of work went into those presentations. Some items were donated by the school, but milk, donuts, shirts, and other giveaways were paid for out of pocket.
As an officer with ASME, I designed and built the trebuchet (out of pocket) which was used as another Tech recruiting and promotional tactic. I also used personal contacts to bring in Flowserve, a global engineering firm which has now hired several Tech engineers from that meeting.
Similar activities are done by other members of the Blue.
I'm not calling you out or saying we're better than anyone else. I am attempting to show that we try to do a lot of work for Tech. Personally, I'm glad you're coming in here with a stick and an attitude. I hate complacency and I hope you keep us far from it. My point is that we are NOT just an organization that paints up for games and then goes to bragging about how great we are. We do this because we love Tech. It is reflected in our actions and if you have any ideas on how we can improve, I would LOVE to hear them.
I would love for anyone to tell me how to be a better gorilla and how for all of us to increase enthusiasm and how to do whatever it is better. We can improve and we are trying to improve.