July 21, 2011
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
We all have an interest in standardizing our gold color and Quick Slant is happy to report there is good news on the horizon! Athletics staff that included coaches, marketing personnel and equipment managers, university design and graphic experts and our trademark and licensing office spent hours communicating with the major retailers such as Nike, Jansport and Under Armour reviewing options and coordinating ideas. The result – we have found a solution that will come as close as possible to getting our gold standardized.
Many of you will read this and recall the old joke, “how many Vanderbilt people does it take to screw in a light bulb?” because it would seem easy to standardize a gold color. Just do it! We’ve written before, however, that this is far from simple. There are many manufacturers around the world, each using different dye lots and material. Many colors look one way on fabric and another on a printed page.
This cross section of campus experts have chosen a “Vegas Gold” as it’s known to many in the trade. To simplify, think of the shade of many of our team uniforms.
It will take almost a year for the panorama of bright golds, yellows, mustards and so forth to disappear from inventories but just like our Star V mark, which required that long to become dominant, the work and the wait will be well worth it.
Football fans probably have noticed that our marketing efforts have really geared up and in another week or two we will be going full throttle promoting our season schedule and ticket sales. We have had an aggressive outreach program in place. An attempt was made to personally visit with every former season ticket holder that hasn’t yet renewed, even our players have been involved; our marketing staff has appeared at many area events, our advertisements will be seen and heard in many places and our best salesman – Coach James Franklin – has been relentless in his promotion of his program.
Last year our women’s cross country team finished a program best third at the Southeastern Conference Championship. Be watching for Steven Keith’s team to challenge for the title this fall.
NAME DROPPING… Former Commodore shortstop Ryan Klosterman has been named an assistant coach at Central Florida after eight years of pursing his dream of reaching the Major Leagues…as a key to Tim Corbin’s first two teams, he made so made big defensive plays that ESPN announcers briefly used the word “Klosterman” in 2004 to describe a highlight reel stop…Congratulations to Bart Smith, just promoted to Director of the National Commodore Club and Athletics Development, and Sterling Frierson, named the Assistant Director of the National Commodore Club and Athletics Development. They will form a terrific team with new Executive Director Mark Carter.
