Today, Fox5 is coming out to film practice. They are featuring the team on Saturday morning, and the website and internet marketing have been described by those involved as "essential to the team's success."
We have raised over $15,000 to fund the kids through the website and other means. The Blue Devils' newsletter goes out to nearly 1,300 people, highlighting what's happening with the team, telling readers what's coming up, and also raising funds for a severely underfunded team.
The approach was to start revitalizing the school with football... football involves a whole lot of kids and energizes the school body early. When I attended Avondale, the football team had probably 40-50 guys dressed on the field. Our marching band sent 140 kids on the field. The cheerleaders had a dozen or so kids involved, and both the footall team and cheerleaders had Varsity, Junior Varsity (or B-Team) and eighth grade squads (our school was 8th-12th grade at the time.
I won't go into all the details of the hardships the kids face nowadays, but the school is being treated like an old poor school that the county wishes would just go away.
- The School of Performing Arts has returned to Avondale, and their facilities are getting a full renovation, and about 1/3 of the school is being dedicated to them as a separate student body (we were intermingled with the Avondale kids when I was there).
- The weight room has been moved from where it had been for decades and all the equipment moved into a storage container across the street. When the kids work out, they have to haul the equipment out and exercise in a parking lot.
- Economics were so bad that when I went to photograph a practice, some kids had socks, and some did not (I've heard that the year before, cleats were passed in between students because they couldn't afford to buy more).
The Return to Excellence
When I built their website, I hadn't planned on getting involved with the program - I live about 45 minutes away. However, when I saw what they had to work with and how hard they were working despite the situation, I knew that these kids deserved much more.
I ramped up the website to include the ability for people to donate online, started a newsletter through Constant Contact for them, got a Facebook page going and recently began a twitter campaign for them.
The newsletter currently has about 1300 subscribers, mostly alumni. We are starting to promote to the faculty and student body.
The facebook page has nearly 600 fans - and actively works with the other Avondale Alumni groups - and photos from the games and practices are passed along there, including newsworthy items.
The Twitter page has got all kinds of potential once we get that list up and running.
Marketing online is a lot more than just a website... it takes work... just like any other marketing.
The team has won 3 games so far, including one preseason game. They are officially 2-0 (as of this writing) and they only won two games last year. They're ramping up into a run of games with Georgia powerhouses Blessed Trinity, Buford, Westminster, Greater Atlanta Christian, Decatur and Lovett all in a row with no bye weeks in between them (their bye week is right before this run).
This is an improved team, and while this will be a tough year, they will not be pushed around like they have been over the past 20 years.
...and the student body is energized!
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