bluecrewprez
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Posts posted by bluecrewprez
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the letters need to be just a couple three paragraphs long. but still separate thoughts. so that is why i think it would be better if everyone wrote their own messages.
diane just needs to provide our base information.
Wow thanks guys....I'm all about this letter writing campaign! I have a complete job description written up at home, so when I get back tonight I'll post it here.
And my last name: Blaskiewicz
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I agree, can we get an email address for him?
haha I'm all about this letter writing campaign...I don't see his e-mail address posted yet, but I'll keep tabs.
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Diane, the question I have is what other schools have this type of position? Any?
While i applaud your efforts in gaining big numbers of members "on paper"... those 400 plus members did not show up on a regular basis. Your rate of people actually showing up for games was nowhere near 100 percent throughout the course of your several years with the Blue Crew. In fact, quite often, it was sub 50 percent. Sure they showed up for a big game, or when it fit into their schedule, but too many excuses were made...(ex, its Christmas break, its finals week, its mardi gras etc)
I believe you made several mistakes with your strategey with the group. 1st, you eliminated the requirements to attend a certain number of games... there was no incentive to get the members to games when they felt a little ill, or had to read another chapter for bio. The people involved were more or les casual fans who only went when it was easy for them.
2nd... by not having those requrements (above and beyond of being just a fan) you turned what was supposed to be the ultimate slu fans' rooting group into just another named organization. When its easy to join a group, and there are no requirements to enter and remain in it, your bond with the group is that much less. When you have put no effort into a project other than showing up when it was convenient, you don't appreicate it when things go well. Your emotional bond is that much less
The BLUE CREW, should have been an elite group of fans that would walk through fire to attend and heckle and cheer at a basketball game. Everybody in the student body didn't need to be in the group. Nothing was stopping them from going to games as a fan and sitting right behind you. Having all of them as "members" really only helped your resume, not the group as a whole long-term. If you had truely hard-core fans who joined as sophomores after waiting for a year and learning about what the group was, you might pick up lifetime members. Your problem was you admitted too many people who were casual fans, and that apathy spread. Right now you have 10 members who are really what I would expect from an elite group... the rest are just fans with fancy t-shirts.
There are a number of schools that have this kind of position...a lot of east coast/big 10 schools. Also, I have heard of something like it at Xavier.
"Mistake 1": We thought long and hard about getting rid of the attendance requirement, which was put in place to decide who would be allowed to come to the banquet at the end of the year with the players and coaches. We decided to get rid of it was because my sophomore year, out of 100 members, only 9 met the 9 of 11 game requirement. My junior year with 200 members, we had 11 members meet the requirement. A lot of people told me that they stopped coming once they'd missed 3 or 4 games because they already had not met the requirement. We wanted everyone to feel welcome, no matter when they decided to come to a game.
"Mistake 2": Beggars can't be choosers: Fans are fans. Who are we to say who is allowed to come and have a good time in the student section?? It sounds like you're saying we needed to have a U.S. Citizenship-type admittance test to see if they were "hard-core enough" to be in the Blue Crew. That is no way to build a fan base. I found over the years that about 25% of the members actually turn out to each game. There wasn't much we could do about that, no matter how hard we tried. Of course we have a better turn out when we play big name teams like UNC or Gonzaga, but by having the large numbers and not requiring them to come to every game, they don't feel awkward sitting in the section when they DID choose to come to a game.
One of the 5,846+ keys to making Billiken Basketball successful is to make sure that everyone feels welcome at all times, then when they do come to the game and they have a good time, they're more likely to come back. The next step is to take those 10 hard core fans and make them get out to promote the games to the general members and spread their excitement.
Also, about 75% of our members were freshmen every year, so all of the front rows were the hard core sophomores, juniors and seniors. That's why we created "Blue Crew Families" (1 or 2 non-freshmen in charge of about 20-25 general members): to try and get the hard core members' energy to rub off on the freshmen on a more one-on-one basis.
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exactly. there is a reason they are taking slack. and if diane was able to justify why the $60 was significant, proof again of the great job she did.
Thanks for the kind words Roy and SLUSAE....if only Biondi/Weixelmann felt the same way....
A few things:
The reason that the student ticket charge went up from $50 to $60 was because student ticket prices rose from $30 to $35, so rather than charging $55, Blue Crew just decided to round it up to $60. Also, I think they were expecting to do a lot more events/promotions.
I pushed really hard to try and get that "Internal Marketing" position to continue to work for Billiken Basketball/sports (I would gladly take $50,000 a year to do it....hell, I would take $15,000 to do it....just don't tell Biondi....or my parents). I talked to Cheryl Levick, the VP of Student Development, and Weixelmann over a total of 6 months, and no one was interested. Maybe it was me just being stubborn, cocky and reluctant to leave SLU, but I spent 4 years literally studying SLU students and their responses to athletics, and I learned some things: one of which being that athletics MUST be drilled into their heads everyday. Make it look like a big deal, and it will be a big deal (or it will at least be on it's way to being a big deal). That's how I promoted Blue Crew my 1st year as Prez: we had about 100 members going into my junior year, up for about 60 my freshmen year, and I told the incoming frosh that Blue Crew was THE thing to do on campus, and I think because of the way that my fellow Blue Crew volunteers and I said it, they believed us. My junior year we had 216 members. I did the same thing before senior year and we had 409 members, with less than 50 non-freshmen. It IS possible to get students to games AND to care about Billiken basketball...they just need other students to drill it into their heads.
For $50k, I'd quit my good job to run all over campus and promote athletics
...I do, however, think that it would be more difficult for me to be as successful as I was when I was student, because SLU students are VERY anti-administration. They respond MUCH better to their peers telling them something is cool than a SLU employee doing the same, but I'd be up for the challenge To tell you the truth, I was actually holding out for the AD position.....
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As a former member of Blue Crew, I have to wonder what prompts us to give "Kudos" to this counterproductive moron. This is a group of students that, rather than putting their energy toward the more noble endeavor of recruiting students to come to games as part of Blue Crew, spend their time heckling those that are attempting to recruit fans. I sit behind them every game and have yet to see them spend as much time cheering for the team as they do heckling the Blue Crew. I'm not trying to absolve Blue Crew of its part in the student turnout (or lack thereof), I'm just surprised to see a few of you "regulars" on the board endorsing what seems to be a counterproductive activity to me.
I 100% agree with you. Everything you said is right on. It always frustrated me that the guys that sat behind us focused their energy on us, rather than heckling the opposing team. I applaud the Blue Crewers that come to the games. They are true fans. They are positive fans. If the jerks behind the Blue Crew think they can do so much better (as I publicly challenged one of them to run for President if he though he could do better, a challenge he was unable to meet), then DO BETTER! Join the organization, run for President, and turn it around. No matter what those guys do, the Blue Crew WILL have first choice of seating/the best student tickets in the arena, so good luck changing that.
I really have held my tongue this season, but to tell you the truth about the current Blue Crew situation, I'm very disappointed. Current members: don't get mad at me and tell me that I turned my back on you or anything like that...far from it...because a lot of what I'm saying here is what they have told me themselves this season. The people that go to the games I consider some of my absolute closest friends, and they do an amazing job. They are the most dedicated and true Billiken fans and I wish there were 500 more students just like them. I'm not trying to sound like I'm whining, but I really did put a lot of work into the Blue Crew over the past 3 years (especially the last 2), and I felt that we had built up a momentum that could have really turned into something this year, with a $1,000,000 coach. I almost feel like I did all of that work for nothing. The majority of Blue Crew members and freshmen and they don't know what kind of turnout we've had in the past.
I feel like the new leadership never took hold of the reins and that they have not been able to harness the excitement and energy built up over the last 2 years. I haven't seen one sign, not one distraction tool (i.e. pinwheels, reflectors, etc.), I haven't seen any face paint since November..and I won't lie: it makes me angry sitting in my nose bleed section seats. I spend 90% of the games watching the Blue Crew and see what they're doing (my dad can attest for that: I spend more time telling him with the Blue Crew should be doing instead of what the players should be doing), and I just wish the current leadership had really went for it, like I thought they would. I've even talked to current e-board members who are angry about how things are going, how they wish they could be doing more, and they're wondering why they're not.
I know that I had a lot of energy (and free time) to devote to the organization, and that my extreme commitment can be hard to match (without the aid of substances), but unless someone is elected to be President next year with an extreme devotion and commitment to making Billiken Basketball THE thing to do on campus, the arena will not have long-term student support--they'll come out of curiosity, then stop coming. We've hired a new $1,000,000 coach and beaten 2 top 30 teams this season and nothing has changed in the student turnout. We need someone that can take those types of milestones, plaster the achievements all over campus, then make the students feel like they are lucky to have such a great basketball team/coach.
And I don't want any current members getting angry at me (though I know they will, naturally), but they have to see it from my perspective. If you had spent the amount of time that I know they know I spent, they'd feel the exact same way: wondering why I even bothered.
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bonwich, just dont sell them as season tix. sell them to the general public as single game tix. then the next year if more students make the effort you still got the ability to hold back more. but the last thing we need to do is set 1000 aside and then they sit empty when the general public would have bought them.
I was actually in the front row at last night's game (with my buddy who just graduated from Syracuse, i.e. never went to SLU)....the funny thing was that half of the people in the front row didn't go to SLU/don't go to SLU/have already graduated from SLU. It is extremely difficult to get people to go to games. The apathy that SLU students have is not a BLUE CREW problem, it is a much more widespread problem.
As I've said a million times, students will not turn up at games until they understand the importance of it and actually decide to have pride in their school. It's the same problem that the local media has: last night on Channel 5 News I think it was, they showed basketball highlights from SMS, SIUC, Illinois, Mizzou, and only SHOWED the score from the Billikens game...the ONLY D1 basketball team in the city. If students are sitting at home, watching TV on Christmas Break and if NO MEDIA is discussing the game, then why would they think it's important to go??
The media needs to get off their asses and actually cover their home team. Where the hell are you Frank??? Haven't seen you on the sidelines since the first Majerus game....
(I would go after the bigger list of people to blame, but today it'll just be the media)
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do you think mario knows that his hair really looks ridiculous?
Wow I so wish that I was still in Blue Crew...that picture is HOT!
P.S. AMAZING JOB AT THE CARBONDALE GAME ON SATURDAY BLUE CREW!!! I WAS VERY PROUD!!!!
(I even left my nose bleed section seats for the first 10 minutes of the second half to go down and cheer....since no one was cheering around me at all) -
Dude must be eating a lot to offset all that meth metabolism.
hahahaha love it.
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prez, i hope all is well with you
miss you on the board and leading the blue crew!!!
All is good over on this end! I wish I could post more, but I got a job that doesn't give me much free time during the day to do so (I just started as the Director of Marketing for Saint Louis Closet Co. and Saint Louis Cellars, both owned by Jennifer Williams, a SLU grad herself).
It was very hard for me to go to the first bball game this year, 1. because my season tix are in the nosebleed section and 2. because I consider BLUE CREW like an ex-boyfriend: I kinda want it to suck with out me, but I also want it to do better coz I was there
I actually watched the BLUE CREW section more than I watched the game haha. I'm gonna try to post more....keep talking attendance problems and I'll ALWAYS post on that. **Sorry for the side note
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Sodie-ball slowly eroded the fan base. Rick will give us a winner and the fans will come back. I'm more concerned about things like which two jucos will Majerus land in the spring, then I am about game presentation, promotions and all of that. I'll let others on the board dissect that stuff.
I couldn't DISAGREE with you more. Soderberg's years had the best consistent student turn-out in years. When I was a freshman (2003-2004), there were 60 people in Blue Crew, 125 the next year, 250 the year after, and 400 members when I graduated this past May. The Coach has nothing to do with student turn out if the students don't know who he is. The Bills could win all they want and be the best team in the nation, but SLU students wouldn't know the difference if someone didn't TELL them (even their parents telling them how good we are is a type of promotion). That's how I convinced a lot of kids into joining Blue Crew my first year as President of Blue Crew: I told them that we were the biggest, best, and coolest organization on campus and they were all about joining....even though we weren't exactly quite yet, but after they joined, we were.
Promotion is 100% the reason kids come to games....how else can you explain how we got over 1000 people to come to the 1st Billiken Madness coming off of a 9-21 season??
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it was my understanding that bcp indeed did approach cheryl with the idea of a student liason position of sorts to try to continue the work she did as bcp. it was my understanding that those above cheryl nixed that quickly. another example of no vision.
Thanks for the thought!
I met with Cheryl, the VP of Student Development AND the Provost for about 7 months to try and get them to create that job ("Director of Internal Marketing", I called it). I just think they didn't the importance or necessity of the position seriously. I understand why kids don't go to basketball games and I KNOW I could have helped it this year, but apparently "funds were unavailable" to create such a position. I pushed for that job for a long time, but got cut off at the top in May (now I'm the Director of Marketing for Saint Louis Closet Co. and Saint Louis Cellars, a wine store that just opened at the beginning of November, both companies owned by the same person).Students don't go to games not because they don't like basketball, but for bigger reasons than that...students aren't proud or invested enough in their university to care about how their team is doing. 90% of the people I came across during my 4 years as an undergrad came to SLU NOT as their first choice but it was their safety school....because they didn't get into Marquette or Georgetown or some other bigger, "better" university. No one will come into their college wanting to support it and be proud if they didn't want to be there in the first place. This is not an athletic department issue, this is a UNIVERSITY issue. It doesn't matter if we spend millions on a new coach if students aren't given a reason to care. Another thing that MUST be done is for STUDENTS to do a lot of on campus promotions. Administrators can tell them they should go to games, but we all know how anti-establishment college kids are (I can say that now coz I'm a graduate
). Students need other STUDENTS telling them it's cool to go to games. I won't lie, I was a bit disappointed with the numbers for Blue Crew this year. We had 409 members last year and this year they have around 200...with a brand new coach and an even better team than last season. I'm in no way knocking the new Blue Crew e-board (the people running it are some of my closest friends and are absolutely amazing fans), but there is an excitement missing from the student body in general. There will be no loyalty to the university if the university is not loyal to the students (as in giving them a reason to care). We all know it can be done (case in point: 1st Billiken Madness 3 years ago coming off of a 9-21 season and pulling in over 1000 people), the administrators need to step up and realize that something MUST be done, or else Biondi is going to continue pissing money away. All you can do is sigh and shrug and hope they figure it out one day, coz we all know they sure as hell don't listen to the alums/fans/students about what needs to be done.
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I think RM, the AD, Blue Crew...need to come up with SOMETHING. I can certainly live with closed practices (although, as a fan, i think it sucks). I'm sure that's how all the big-time schools are doing it, so I'm cool with that. If he doesn't like Midnight Madness...then I suppose I can deal with that too. But, I think RM really needs to come up with SOMETHING to drum up interest in the team. All the major schools have MM. I think I read one of our potential recruits is attending UK's MM. Add onto that, the fact that we are only playing in 1 exhibition game, preseason viewings are going to be almost non-existant. IMO, that is NOT a good way to drum up support and name recognition for the team.
I know the Blue Crew and Majerus are planning a meet-and-greet event in lieu of having a Midnight Madness event. I'm surprised we haven't heard anything about that event yet as well.....
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RM exhibits a interesting management style. Two of the coaches he hired are coaches on 2nd chances. Porter lost his job at ISU for not winning enough but was a very successful asst coach and coach at ARK-LR and Biancardi, had the recruiting indiscretions but successful at WSU. Romer did the same thing with Brad. A trait of a successful coach? Another thing I noticed, all have a personal relationship with RM. Does not seem to be much interviewing. The only one that he didn't know when taking the job was probably AT.
Can I just say that Majerus is an fun guy to read....I think we should keep a running tab of all his great lines in articles etc. I'll start with 2 from this one:
- "Paul has this genuine passion for the game and so do I. You could call it two passionate guys connecting. I guess I have kind of a man-crush on him."
- "The more I think about it, the more I see only one problem. His idea of a good time and mine are the same. We both like Italian food. We both like ice cream. Before this is over, I'll probably be sharing my Lipitor with him."
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In terms of A-10 rivals and from the stand point of which school causes the most uproar within the student section, I would say that Dayton would be our biggest rival. When we were in Dayton for the last road trip, I got a chance to talk to the president of their student section for a while and I was saying that we consider them pretty much our biggest rival...he said they had no idea, they consider Xavier theirs--obviously--and that they thought of us at the same level as Fordam or Charlotte. Either way, I think we need to stir something up with somebody in conference....maybe the Blue Crew could do something sort of mascot attack on Dayton or Missouri State or something....I bought a brand new Billiken blue Mazda3 that I could use as the getaway car....you wouldn't believe the trunk space!
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When we talked to Majerus about Billiken Madness after the press conference back in April, he said that he wasn't a fan of those Midnight Madness events and didn't think we'd do it again...but he did say that he would be willing to do something during an afternoon, like a team/coaches meet-and-greet event and that he would bring sausages down from Wisconsin for it. I wouldn't mind seeing just one more Billiken Madness like we did in the past--just to see how it would go with Majerus at the helm--but I think that having something where people can socialize more with the players/coaches, BBQ, etc would be a lot of fun too. It would most definitely have to be partly funded by the AD, b/c an event like that would be a lot more expensive than our Billiken Madnesses in the past. I am 110% confident that Becca (the new Prez) and the rest of the Blue Crew E-Board will put something amazing together to kick off the season right.
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As I think we all can understand, for a woman like CL who was trying to get herself and her abilities noticed on the national scale, I would be pissed too if someone above you didn't let you do your job. You can't actually think that she would stay after being disrespected like that. CL was one of the best things that could have happened to our AD--as detailed on stltoday.com. I think Maryland is a great fit for her and I'm sure she'll be fantastic there (and I'm not just saying that because I tried to get a job with her....I didn't get the job, but I still have a the utmost respect for her and what she has done for SLU). I just hope that Biondi can find someone quickly that is able to handle all of these new stresses (new coaches, the arena, etc). Hopefully we can attract somebody by having Majerus.
We are really losing something special with Cheryl leaving, but maybe we'll meet up with her again if SLU plays Maryland in the NCAA Tournament
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I've noticed that too. The other thing I've also started to notice is how lost I am in all of these new postings....I guess I should start devoting more time to research so I can keep up with whatever is being talked about around here.....
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Happy Father's Day to my dad (a regular Billikens.com reader, but a little too intimidated to post)
Oh, and to Father Biondi.
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On the positive side, maybe Chartwell's just wants to increase everyone's immunity.....for spoiled food.
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if the Cavs win the NBA championship this year and SLU makes it past the first round of the NCAA Tournament. That would definitely draw some attention our way.....
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My name is Craig
I give good hugs
You're not my friend
If you do drugs
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I hope she gets a raise.....
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I don't mind a bit
Looks good to me! -
...I do, however, think that it would be more difficult for me to be as successful as I was when I was student, because SLU students are VERY anti-administration. They respond MUCH better to their peers telling them something is cool than a SLU employee doing the same, but I'd be up for the challenge 
(I even left my nose bleed section seats for the first 10 minutes of the second half to go down and cheer....since no one was cheering around me at all)
Timing is Everything
in Billikens.com Main Board
Posted
It is definitely a full-time job. During the summers is the best time to acquire new fans, especially with things like SLU 101 running all summer long and all of the planning for the next year being hashed out. I'll post the job description back in December 2006/January 2007 when I get home from work tonight and show you all what I was thinking.