Tuesday, August 25, 2009
This year, students can start the road to becoming alumni donors to athletics with $25.
Students can now start contributing to the Williams Fund while in school. The Williams Fund is the fundraising portion of the Athletics Department that accepts donations from fans that go toward getting priority seating at football and men’s basketball games. Fans can earn points relative to the amount of money they donate. For the first time, students can sign up to the new Jr. Williams Fund and receive priority points to their names when they leave school.
Non-student men’s basketball tickets are now determined by the athletics department’s Select-A-Seat program, in which donors choose their seat in Allen Fieldhouse based on how many points they have.
According to marketing materials from the fund, students will receive 10 points for every year they participate. So far, 600 students have signed up, Banks Floodman, development associate with the Williams Fund, said.
Floodman, former linebacker for the Kansas football team and 2006 graduate, said it was his idea to start the fund.
“I wasn’t able to develop points while in school,” Floodman said. “And that’s something that I always wanted to do, is to become a member.”
Mike Magnusson, Fort Dodge, Iowa graduate student, who works for the Williams Fund, said the fund provided a good opportunity for students to reconnect through sporting events by providing better seating more quickly.
“It’s really the students who are interested in becoming season ticket holders later in life who want to support the team,” Magnusson said. “When you’re done with school, it’s going to keep you connected to the University.”
Floodman said marketing could be difficult when students were thinking about managing their budgets.
“That’s the toughest part,” Floodman said. “That’s why we tried to make the price as low as we did.”
Floodman said the Jr. Williams Fund was similar to the Student Rams Club at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which also carries a $25 per year price. Matt Terrell, director of external operations with the Rams Club, said UNC was offering the points to students below market value, seeing it as an opportunity to keep students as donors well after graduation.
“They understand what it takes to run our athletics department,” Terrell said. “Like at Kansas, scholarship athletes don’t attend for free.”
Terrell said UNC’s 250-member organization had grown to 500 members this year.
Floodman said students who joined the University’s program would receive a gift. This year it will be a Kansas Jayhawk flag. Next year members will receive a t-shirt, and members who stay for three or four years could receive an invitation to a special tailgate on football gamedays.
Students can sign up for the Jr. Williams Fund through the Williams Fund section at www.kuathletics.com
— — Edited by Megan Morriss
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