MOORHEAD, Minn. — MSUM Dragon Sports Media and their GO! TEAM internship program took home two National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators 'Best Of' Awards and a Sports Video Group College Sports Media Awards finalist honor this summer.

The NACMA 'Best Of' Awards are a national honor awarded to three different groups in a variety of categories.  Group I is the BCS Division I schools, Group II consists of the FCS Division I schools, and Group III is all Division II, III, NAIA, junior colleges, International, or non-Division I schools.

Last year was the first year Dragon Sports Media submitted anything for an award with the Valley Imports Hovercam in NACMA's new revenue generating idea category and took home the Group III gold.

This year, the GO! TEAM submitted the Valley Imports Slam Cam hoop sticker under the same best new revenue generating idea category and took silver.  A second silver award winner was the 2014-15 Partnership Playbook for best sales piece.

"We want gold, but absolutely honored to receive the NACMA awards," said MSUM assistant athletics director for marketing and production Jon Wepking.  "To go gold in the first try was amazing, but now we're excited to set a high bar and continue to make our athletics programs and the programs that support them the best in the country."

Dragon Sports Media also submitted several entries to the national Sports Video Group College Sports Media Awards which were held in Atlanta, Georgia, earlier this summer.  The four groups receiving awards were National Networks/Professional, Regional/Local/Conference Digital Networks, Collegiate Athletics, and Collegiate Student.  The only finalist nomination for Dragon Sports Media came in the category of Outstanding Live Studio/Remote Hosted Production for DragonsLIVE from Evansville.

"Being a finalist for an SVG award at all is a massive honor," said Wepking.  "But what really grabbed me was we got in at the long-shot of our submissions in the Collegiate Athletics category and were up against the big wigs like Notre Dame and Texas A&M."

The full list of finalists up against MSUM for the award was Notre Dame and Texas A&M as Wepking mentioned, but also the University of Arkansas, the University of Buffalo, the University of Wyoming, and the eventual winner, Liberty University.

What is also very impressive is that MSUM was the only totally Division II school finalist in any category and in any group.

"Our staff did some incredible things last year with our new TV contract with XTRA," said Wepking.  "Everything the GO! TEAM poured into making that happen culminated with an opportunity to do something that had never been done before at our level.  To get recognized for that is an incredible honor and another testament of how truly talented and creative our team is."

DragonsLIVE from Evansville was the first attempt at a live remote show outside of Nemzek Hall in Moorhead, but the temptation of being the first to ever even ask to do a live TV show at the NCAA Division II Elite 8 was an easy "why not" from athletics director Doug Peters.

"We saw an opportunity to do something that had never been done before and to celebrate our student-athletes.  Talk about a no-brainer," said Peters.  "Our staff worked very hard and found a way to make it all happen and the nomination just goes to show how far we've come in the production realm of Dragon Athletics.  Now students who helped with these ideas and productions have awards on their resumes when they leave MSUM and that's what it's all about."