Meeting With GT Staff Soon. Need Your Input

[WearGoldToGameDays]

I was able to watch practice today and meet Coach Collins. I told him I’m part of GTSwarm and we want to help.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how we can help the program? I told him and some staff members that together as a group we have people, money and other resources. I will be meeting to gather direction from the staff members but it would be nice to come to the table with ideas and recommendations too.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

There is probably no feasible way to work this out, but it would be great if we could all meet him and at least some members of the staff, if for nothing more than just to shake their hands.

 

[MWBATL]

Ask not what your GTAA can do for you.....aks what you can do for your GTAA.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I was able to watch practice today and meet Coach Collins. I told him I’m part of GTSwarm and we want to help.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how we can help the program? I told him and some staff members that together as a group we have people, money and other resources. I will be meeting to gather direction from the staff members but it would be nice to come to the table with ideas and recommendations too.

I wouldn't stress too much about coming with your own ideas. You might run into friction on any of that stuff, depending on what it is. Anything that makes them think or expend effort with how busy they are might be difficult to accomplish. I would just brainstorm with them to ask what they think could help and lets get a wish list from them.

 

[Milwaukee]

We need to give more money. That's all.

 

[FrostedOrange]

$$ and even easier than that - get on social media of your choice and help push their digital product. I got Twitter simply to follow GT football and like/retweet/comment on school posts and congratulate SAs who get offers and/or commit. I suspect little things like this, multipled times a few thousand, is what they need right now

 

[tech_wreck47]

I was able to watch practice today and meet Coach Collins. I told him I’m part of GTSwarm and we want to help.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how we can help the program? I told him and some staff members that together as a group we have people, money and other resources. I will be meeting to gather direction from the staff members but it would be nice to come to the table with ideas and recommendations too.

Locker room with a view of the stadium under the south stands, tall glass windows! A “standing room only” section on top. This goes along with the new edge building that will be getting built and could be a very cool feature for recruiting.

 

[boger2337]

See what we can do as a collective to raise funds. Outside of grad students. Can we speak to local business's for tax right offs? What leverage can we have to get more money generated for the team?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

We need to give more money. That's all.

This.

 

[crut]

I was able to watch practice today and meet Coach Collins. I told him I’m part of GTSwarm and we want to help.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how we can help the program? I told him and some staff members that together as a group we have people, money and other resources. I will be meeting to gather direction from the staff members but it would be nice to come to the table with ideas and recommendations too.

Glad you are meeting with the staff. A while back some people put together a google doc for fan submitted ideas for GT Athletics with room for feedback. We are in the process of turning this into a fully functional website (it's about 1/2 done), but feel free to share any ideas or variations of any ideas you see on there. Some/many of them might not be appropriate because they are above their paygrade or not really a part of what they do, but I think it would still be of interest for you to check out, even if just for it to help you create some more applicable ideas of your own.

GOOGLE DOC OF IDEAS HERE

Some of my favorites so far that I think are the most impactful and most do-able by the GTAA are:
#1 Incentivizing Prompt Gameday Attendance
#3 New Cheers at games
#12 Improve concessions efficiency at football games
#13 Create a supporters section for football and basketball games (really seek to cater this toward non-students aged 18-35)
#24 Create a unique GT handsign to be used in pictures. I've seen the 'A' (for ATL) used some recently which is cool, so either making that mainsteam or using on the ones listed in the document
#30 New business engagement
#34 Work with the school (Georgia Tech) to make T-Night mandatory. Indoctrination and creating a culture that supports athletics is huge for the future of the programs


A couple of the ideas submitted on there are related to Georgia Tech gold and gold apparel/uniforms. There is a petition signed by 250+ people here that would like to see gold used more frequently as the primary color it is. The gold jerseys we saw today was a great start. If it is something you feel is worth the time, feel free to share the petition to show that there is a significant contingency of the fan base that feels the branding of apparel/uniforms is well below its potential.

PETITION HERE

 

[WearGoldToGameDays]

Thanks, crut. I forgot about the google doc - and I even contributed to it!

 

[OCCoachM]

I was able to watch practice today and meet Coach Collins. I told him I’m part of GTSwarm and we want to help.

Do you guys have any recommendations on how we can help the program? I told him and some staff members that together as a group we have people, money and other resources. I will be meeting to gather direction from the staff members but it would be nice to come to the table with ideas and recommendations too.

I was there as well representing #GTNTWS contact me on twitter let's talk!

 

[ThatGuy]

Thanks, crut. I forgot about the google doc - and I even contributed to it!

Yep. Great doc. My favorite is still '#31 - Young Adult Engagement' - particularly the bit about engaging students from other schools. It's a long-term play, but could be very useful in selling tickets and creating sidewalk fans that endure for a long time. (Verified by my friends and wife, who went to a few of the local Atlanta non-football schools.)

 

[ramble_on92]

I realize MLS culture is sweeping the state, but that doesn’t mean it translates to college football. Please no vuvuzelas or new cheers. We are not a soccer team or some startup like UCF, we are a historic program in Atlanta and the southeast with our own established traditions. Keep the “yellow jackets” cheer alive along with our fight songs and that should be fine. As long as the team wins, the fan base will be engaged at games.

 

[GTballer21]

THIS COLOR GOLD

 

[Dottie1145]

I realize MLS culture is sweeping the state, but that doesn’t mean it translates to college football. Please no vuvuzelas or new cheers. We are not a soccer team or some startup like UCF, we are a historic program in Atlanta and the southeast with our own established traditions. Keep the “yellow jackets” cheer alive along with our fight songs and that should be fine. As long as the team wins, the fan base will be engaged at games.

Loud 3rd downs is the only new cheer we need.

 

[Coloradojacket]

Bring back the flash cards.......ok I just showed my age.

 

[deeeznutz]

THIS COLOR GOLD

View attachment 5495

You just know our fans would endlessly complain about the helmet not matching the numbers.

 

[crut]

I realize MLS culture is sweeping the state, but that doesn’t mean it translates to college football. Please no vuvuzelas or new cheers. We are not a soccer team or some startup like UCF, we are a historic program in Atlanta and the southeast with our own established traditions. Keep the “yellow jackets” cheer alive along with our fight songs and that should be fine. As long as the team wins, the fan base will be engaged at games.

To be clear, the idea listed "New Cheers at Football and Basketball Games" does not replace any existing cheers. I agree with the idea because I think there are many times during games when it is too quiet, and there is a lot of opportunity for GT to be innovative/creative in the stadium as fans (goes with the GT brand). This also applies to basketball games. Some increased leadership/structure could make for a more rowdy/hostile home enviornment as well as a more engaging and entertaining experience for fans. You're consistently fighting a battle to make coming to games more rewarding for fans than watching at home. The world now has an over-abundance of stimuli, so if you want to do well in that competition you're going to need to make sure the experience is highly engaging.

As for the vuvuzelas... I get that rationale - "vuvuzelas are a soccer thing, let's leave it there." If it's not the right move to give those to the Swarm section, than finding another way to get that cheer (buzzing on kickoffs like yellow jackets) to spread is ay ok. But maybe they hold 1 game that they specifically try to recruit ATL United fans, and they do it during that game, and then work with student organizations to keep the cheer going in the future without the vuvuzelas.

 

[Southpawmac]

To be clear, the idea listed "New Cheers at Football and Basketball Games" does not replace any existing cheers. I agree with the idea because I think there are many times during games when it is too quiet, and there is a lot of opportunity for GT to be innovative/creative in the stadium as fans (goes with the GT brand). This also applies to basketball games. Some increased leadership/structure could make for a more rowdy/hostile home enviornment as well as a more engaging and entertaining experience for fans. You're consistently fighting a battle to make coming to games more rewarding for fans than watching at home. The world now has an over-abundance of stimuli, so if you want to do well in that competition you're going to need to make sure the experience is highly engaging.

As for the vuvuzelas... I get that rationale - "vuvuzelas are a soccer thing, let's leave it there." If it's not the right move to give those to the Swarm section, than finding another way to get that cheer (buzzing on kickoffs like yellow jackets) to spread is ay ok. But maybe they hold 1 game that they specifically try to recruit ATL United fans, and they do it during that game, and then work with student organizations to keep the cheer going in the future without the vuvuzelas.

I think it also applies to doing a cheer before the game. Like the DMO Speaks "We gon' fight" speech where they play it on the video board and the crowd responds. Doesn't mean we have to try and be ATL UTD but we really don't have any crowd participation traditions other than the THWg thing they started last year that was pretty lackluster.