Just over five years ago, AU had a dying student section at sporting events.
Enter Joe Vidulich.
Then president of AU Student Government, Vidulich helped the Athletic Department develop Blue Crew. Since then it has grown to be the largest student group on campus.
Now the students who were freshmen when Vidulich helped create Blue Crew have graduated, left with no group connection to AU sports.
Enter Blue Crew 2.
Launched by AU this past August, Blue Crew 2 is an alumni group that allows graduates to continue their passion for AU sports and show their school pride.
“Blue Crew 2 is a great way to bring all the excitement on campus and what athletics is doing on campus back to your home,” said Senior Associate Administrator of Development and Special Events for AU Athletics David Bierwirth.
Although the group was launched just over a month ago, it has been on the drawing boards for a number of years. Bierwirth has worked on the group since the beginning when the idea was developed as a result of a number of meetings between him and AU Alumni Relations.
Bierwirth said Alumni Relations, Raina Lenney, Brian Keane and Margo Herron as central players in the planning the group.
“Herron in particular was an alumna who was very excited about the idea and gave a lot of insight into the group,” Bierwirth said.
Herron is on AU’s Alumni Board and graduated with a B.A. from the School of Public Affairs in 1985 and an MBA from the Kogod School of Business in 2003. As an undergraduate, Herron played field hockey for AU. She is also credited with coming up with the name Blue Crew 2.
Herron came up with the “2” because she believes the alumni group to be a separate but supportive entity of Blue Crew. She does not want the group to “take away” from what Blue Crew does, but add to school spirit, she said.
“We don’t want to crash on the students’ party,” Herron said. “But the group is also in support of AU sports and student-athletics.”
That the 2010 graduating class of AU was the first class to graduate from the University having been Blue Crew members for four years was important in the development of Blue Crew 2, Bierwirth said.
Just like Blue Crew, Blue Crew 2 offers its members a variety of amenities and incentives for joining. For $18.93 — the price was consciously set to 1893 as a tribute to the year AU was founded — alumni receive a Blue Crew 2 T-shirt, discounts on tickets to all AU sporting events and discounts at the bookstore.
The benefits of joining are intended to give alumni as many opportunities as possible to return to campus, Bierwirth said.
“We would love [alumni] to come back and enjoy a game on campus whether they are a soccer fan, a wrestling fan or a basketball fan,” Bierwirth said.”[Blue Crew 2] is open to all alumni, of any generation, that are engaged by a passion for athletics.”
To inform alumni, whether they “graduated in the 60s or last year,” Bierwirth said the Athletics Department has relied on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
“The group is out there and our viral growth is very important for those out-of-market alumni,” he said.
For “in-market” alumni, specifically alumni up and down the East Coast, AU Athletics has hosted a number of launch parties in the D.C.-metro area. The first launch party was held at Guapo’s in Tenleytown on September 16, and a second took place Thursday, September 23 in Virginia. Two more are planned for this Thursday and Friday.
Although Bierwirth did not disclose the exact number of alumni who joined Blue Crew 2 at the first two events, he said that everyone involved in developing the group are happy with its progress.
“We have a pretty good sense of the buzz,” Bierwirth said. “We are excited about where we are this early in the game.”
One sign of the degree of buzz surrounding the group? One of the first alumni to join Blue Crew 2 was an AU graduate in Colorado. The man joined before the group’s web page was up on the AU Athletics’ website and before its campaign was launched in August.
Based on the current response from alumni, Bierwirth and the others involved in developing Blue Crew 2 expect to generate more alumni connections than any other alumni group.
“We would love to see a similar adoption rate as we have seen on campus with the Blue Crew,” Bierwirth said. “With Blue Crew as the largest student group, our goal is to turn [Blue Crew 2] into the largest affinity alumni group.”
kgreubel@theeagleonline.com
