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STAFF SPOTLIGHT CORRIE SEARS SHORT AND SWEET Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing Favorite Richmond restaurant: Lunch on Broad St. Place you to go on a day off: Virginia Beach Artist most recently played on your iPod: Darius Rucker Favorite gameday giveaway: We have a really cool t-shirt planned. I think fans are really going to like it. Favorite book: The Shack Favorite movie: Hoosiers RR: How did you first get interested one thing that I do enjoy; no day is in sports marketing? ever the same. Most of the time a lot of it is just communication and CS: I always played sports when coordinating. It's a lot of emailing I was a little kid, and my dad was back and forth and coordinating always a coach and a referee. I things between advertising, was never good enough to play in community relations, mascot college, but I always had an interest appearances, talking with your in it. When I was in college I was coaches, talking with your studentin business administration. I found athletes, and planning for the out that you could also do sports season. administration. It was kind of like a dream come true because I didn't RR: What would people be most know you could work in sports. surprised to know about your job? RR: Why is marketing such an CS: Most people don't know the important part of college athletics? gameday portion of marketing; between writing the scripts, CS: I think with college athletics coordinating every single timeout, you have more sports, whereas the cheerleaders, the band, onwhen you're with the Nuggets, or court presentations, halftime the Broncos, or the Capitals you entertainment and cuing music. only have one team that you're When I got my job at Nebraska I trying to sell. In college athletics you're dealing with anywhere from remember talking to my mom and 15-25 sports. Everybody always has I said, "Mom, every single thing a breadwinner sport, so it's our job the PA announcer says at a football game, I wrote." to create awareness, support and attendance for all of our sports that RR: What are some promotions or may not get as much attention. campaigns fans can look forward to from the marketing department RR: What does an average day in this season? the office look like for you? CS: It's never average. I think that is CS: We are going to try and do a lot more with our Olympic sports and give fans a lot more reasons to come. As we're trying to grow our sports here, I think we need to be creative in how we get fans to come out to the games, especially students too. I think people are catching the spirit but it's still not 100 percent there. cheering, and screaming, I didn't RR: You previously worked at Nebraska and at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colo. What's been the biggest change in moving to the East Coast and VCU? are into the game and into every think that could ever get beat because that's just something that's pretty unique. I had no idea it could be this energizing or electric. It was crazy. Most of the time we'll say a lot of fans are spectators, it's hard to go somewhere and get fans that single play; they do that here. I remember calling home and saying every basket made here is like a game-winning shot. CS: Being in this specific market in Richmond is a challenge for me. Coming from Nebraska where we owned the market, we owned the state; everybody wanted to be a part of us. It was challenging to come into a market where not everyone might know who VCU is or who the Rams are. RR: What's your favorite thing about game day at VCU? RR: What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? CS: I think it's important, especially when we live in this crazy hectic lifestyle, to remember to start everyday fresh and don't let anything that happened the day before carry over. I try to come to work every single day refreshed CS: The fans, I can't tell you how much I was shocked at my first basketball game here. Obviously coming from Nebraska football games with 86,000-plus fans and forget about what happened yesterday whether it was good or bad and just trying to concentrate on the tasks for the day.