As a theme, “Building Champions” can be viewed as the end product, and pride, passion, spirit, and tradition as the “building blocks” that provide the foundation for achieving that goal. “Building Champions” is intended to serve as an overarching theme and the connotation is intended to be much broader than simply athletic success. We are interested more so in total student development, and aspire to shape and mold young people who, with proper nurturing and guidance, will become “champions” on the field, in the classroom, and in life. This message will guide us in all of our work and will become who we are and what we do.
We believe that pride, passion, spirit, and tradition exemplify core elements which must be present to successfully reach our end goal and each of these becomes the responsibility of everyone involved in our athletic program—coaches, student-athletes, support staff, fans, boosters, and alumni. These values can be combined together with the primary theme “Building Champions” or each can be used independently and emphasized as a sub-theme.
With a variety of options to mix and match the “Building Champions” product mission statement with the core values of pride, passion, spirit, and tradition, this branding message is one that can be perpetuated over an extended period of time, and will bring a desired level of consistency to marketing MSU athletics in the years ahead.
The branding statement also positively aligns itself with many key elements of the department’s mission statement. The first line of the mission statement notes our commitment to…providing student-athletes with exceptional educational and athletic opportunities. Certainly the aspiration of “Building Champions” speaks to this idea, as we seek to fully develop individuals both in sport and in life.
The second line establishes the standards of national leadership and excellence and these ideals are certainly reflected in the word championship. The department mission statement concludes by suggesting that…We will sustain a strong financial and community base of support by presenting outstanding intercollegiate athletic teams which provide quality entertainment and a positive public identity for the University. Again the words “outstanding” and “quality” are nearly synonymous with the word champion, and the concepts of a strong base of support and a positive public identity speak to the necessity of a strong partnership with the community and good citizenship.
Pride, passion, spirit, and tradition are the fundamental values upon which we will build champions. We will take pride in everything we do as we prepare ourselves to be our very best—pride in the institution, the community, the department, and in the team that each athlete represents. Passion goes almost hand in glove with pride, but is more reflective of that inner drive that motivates us to go further as coaches, student-athletes and administrators. We must also have fans that are passionate about our programs and a growing sense of institutional pride and school spirit will be the result, as we strive to establish a tradition of excellence.
