Friday, January 30, 2009
Students attending men’s basketball games will now have pregame entertainment, courtesy of the University Career Center.
The UCC partnered with KU Athletics and Jayhawk Sports Marketing to create “Center Court,” a pregame show meant to entertain students and inform them of its presence on campus. The next show will begin before tomorrow’s game against Colorado.
“This is the most creative way to get our name out,” said Nancy Hoch, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, senior and UCC employee. “Students seem to enjoy the pregame show. For any office on campus to get its name out to 30,000 people is a creative way to do it.”
The show begins with a video modeled after the “Jaywalking” segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Hoch walked around campus with a camera and a microphone to record material for the video. She asked students what the chancellor’s name is, what the abbreviation NCAA stands for and where the UCC is. The last question, Hoch said, usually stumped students.
“They’ll be standing 100 feet from the UCC and they’ll ask ‘where’s the UCC?’” Hoch said. “They’ll say ‘I think it’s at the Union’ or ‘I didn’t know we had one.’”
Brent Blazek, Lenexa senior, saw “Center Court” premiere at the Kansas State game. Blazek said he and his friends typically show up to games when the doors open two hours in advance. He said the pregame show got students’ attention and that his roommate was one of the students interviewed by Hoch for the video segment of the show.
“I thought it was a good idea, because it’s always kind of a time when students just sit around,” Blazek said. “They have to sit there for two hours so it’s a good idea to stick something in there. Anything you can do to connect to basketball is good. That’s where you get a lot of students — at basketball games.”
After the video, an emcee welcomed students to participate in a live competition for prizes. A video and photo submission contest is also taking place on the UCC’s Web site, KUCareerHawk.com.
Students can submit videos and photos to the Web site showing what they will be doing one year after graduation. Students can then visit the Web site to vote on their favorite submissions. Winners of the contest will take home an iPod Touch or a Nintento Wii.
Megan Hill, UCC associate director, said the show was an unconventional way to get students thinking about their futures.
“The contest provides a fun and unique way to engage students in the career development process,” Hill said. “We hope it will also encourage students to take advantage of the many valuable resources offered by the University Career Center.”
Jason Booker, Jayhawk Sports Marketing general manager, said the project began last February, but on a much smaller scale.
“We wanted to hand out T-shirts as students were waiting to get into the game,” Booker said. “But we thought we could do much more than that. We thought, ‘We’ve got a captive group, so why don’t we do something to entertain them?’”
Booker said the “Jaywalking” segment made it apparent that many students were unaware of the UCC.
“It was eye-opening that a fair amount of people didn’t know what a resume was or what the career center was,” Booker said.
Video and photo submissions to the contest began on Jan. 13 and are due by Feb. 18 to the UCC Web site. Winners of the contest will be announced at the pregame show before the men’s Feb. 21 game against Nebraska.
— — Edited by Justin Leverett
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