New athletics VP has big plans for next year
One week into her term, the new ASUSU athletics vice president has big plans for next year.
Jennifer Putnam, the first female athletics vice president since 1997, took office April 10. The first meeting for new ASUSU officers was April 17.
Before coming to USU, the Mesquite, Nev., native attended school at Snow College. While recruiting for Snow College, Putnam said she met USU recruiters and decided to come here. This is the end of her second year at USU, and next year she will be a graduate student.
Putnam said her exposure to sports started at a young age. She was the only girl in her family and had three brothers. Her dad was coached high school volleyball and golf, and all her brothers played sports.
“I’ve been into sports since I was a day old, I guess,” Putnam said. “I’ve been involved from the get-go.”
Putnam was also a cheerleader in high school.
After entering Snow College, Putnam said she became involved in student government and began supporting teams there. At USU she became active with the office of athletics vice president, helping Sam Winward, the 1999/2000 athletics vice president with some special projects. She got involved with projects to support the Bridgerland Ice Arena. Putnam was also special events chair for The Crew, and a member of the Public Affairs Board.
Putnam said she considered running for the position last year, but things didn’t work out. After elections, she said she met Mike Shipley, the athletics vice president for this past year. Putnam continued her involvement and was activities chair for The Crew, tailgating party chairman, and heavily involved with homecoming and being homecoming royalty.
“I got involved again this year and decided that it was probably a sign I needed to run,” Putnam said.
One area she said she wants to improve next year is working with other ASUSU officers to establish more traditions, especially victory traditions.
“We really don’t have a lot as far as victory traditions,” Putnam said.
“I’m really going to work closely with the PR VP and the Organizations and Traditions VP to get some of those [victory celebrations] organized,” Putnam said.
Putnam also said she plans to continue much of what has been started by past athletics vice presidents, like holding Aggie Fests before football games.
“I plan on working very closely with marketing and with athletics. We’re going to support them every way we can,” Putnam said.
One new tradition Putnam said she would like to start is “Corner on the Quad.” Her plan is to have a booth set up on the Quad the day of or before every home game. This will be done to let students know when home games are and let them know that activities will be going on before the games.
She also said they are going to try to recognize fans who are attending the games and wearing blue by having a “Party in the Stands.”
“I want people in the stands and I want them wearing blue,” Putnam said. “It is going to be an awesome year so let’s get out there and support our clubs and varsity teams. It’s great to be an Aggie; what else would you want
to be?”
Another idea Putnam has is to increase student awareness of athletic events with a monthly newsletter, which she hopes to distribute on and off campus. This newsletter will contain the schedules of all the sports, including varsity, club and intramural.
Putnam also said she plans on spotlighting different athletes each month from varsity, club and intramural teams.
Another big goal Putnam has is to see more people in the stands at games wearing the school colors.
“I really want to see more blue in stands,” she said.
She said they are going to have less expensive shirts for The Crew, and encourage campus groups to design shirts with blue in them. To encourage students to arrive early at games, there will be handouts and materials to make signs at tailgate parties.
A change Putnam would like to see made is to have students more aware of The Crew. She said The Crew is made up of every student on campus even though they may not be aware of it.
“I’d really like to push that so students all know they are members of The Crew, whether they signed up for it or not,” Putnam said.
She said the sign-up for The Crew will be for students who would like to get involved. Though there has not been a lot of opportunity in the past, Putnam said there is going to be a monthly Crew meeting where members can help plan activities. Crew committees include activities, publicity, spirit squad, club sports/intramurals, varsity sports and campus relations. The Crew is also going to work with the Val R. Christensen Service Center and do two service projects per semester.
Putnam said she would also like to work more with the alumni version of The Crew – the Big Blue Club. She would like to work to start an Aggie “A” Flag tradition with businesses in the valley. To do this, The Crew and the Big Blue Club would sell flags to the business and go around for every home game for every season and hang the flags for them or they can be displayed permanently.
One area of concern for Putnam is funding.
“I, surprisingly enough, do not have a very big budget, and a lot of what I have to do deals with fund raising,” Putnam said. “I’ve made a promise to club sports that I would try to help them out with fund raising, and I’m going to focus more on them than my office to start off with.”
Fund raising will come from selling the “A” flags and the Crew Card, which is a discount card for local businesses. Putnam said this was the first year they tried the cards, but they ordered them late and were not as successful as they could have been. Next year, Putnam said they are going to try to get more sponsors for the card and get them out sooner.
Another issue on campus Putnam said she’ll be looking at is plans for a new recreation center.
“It’s time to tackle it again; it didn’t move much this last year,” she said.
She said different proposals have been looked at, and she is in favor of improving the existing facilities.
“I don’t know that we’re necessarily ready for a whole new building,” she said. “What I support right now is expansion and improvement for the HPER building and the Fieldhouse.”