At the 2024 National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) convention in Las Vegas, Nev. this past week, MSUM was named the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) Marketing Team of the Year after earning 12 "Best Of" awards in various categories. Later in the convention, the College Sports Communicators (CSC) also announced 12 awards and recognitions to MSUM for their Digital Design Contest.
Jon Wepking, MSUM's associate athletics director for external relations, was present to receive Marketing Team of the Year Award saying, "This is what happens when you believe in students. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the over 60 students who are a part of the GO! TEAM sports internship program. They are simply incredible. We owe a huge thanks to the alumni who built the foundation for this success. And a massive thank you to the 15 seniors who left their mark on this program forever. Thank you to the reason we have jobs, the student-athletes, who trusted us and gave us access to cover this time in their lives. Thank you to our colleagues at MSUM, the Tech Fee Committee, and of course our sponsors, donors, and fans for making this possible."
Nolan Schmidt, MSUM's assistant athletics director for communications, was present to receive the ChangeMaker Innovation award as well as a writing award for his work on Ashley's Fight. Four MSUM students were honored for their work in graphic design, photography, and video. Notably, Dustin Eichten was the third in the Collegiate Division and first place in the Best Of DII category for Design Portfolio of the Year with fellow GO! TEAMer Lukas Heydt earning 2nd place honors in DII. EJ Hennen earned a 7th place honor in the Collegiate Division for the 2023-24 All Sport Highlight Tape in the Long Form Video/Recap category. Eichten and Avery Nelson also received honors for their photography.
2023-24 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE MARKETING ADMINISTRATORS AWARDS - FULL AWARDS HISTORY
The National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) has selected its 2023-24 "Best Of" award winners who were announced to the membership during the NACMA Convention on June 10th. Initiated in 2003, the NACMA "Best Of" Awards program, sponsored by Old Hat Creative, honors outstanding achievement in marketing and promotions. Awards are presented in 20 categories, with each category divided into three groups based upon school size and conference affiliations to promote fairness. Group I is NCAA Division I FBS institutions, Group II is Division I FCS institutions, and Group III is all DII, DIII, NAIA, and Junior Colleges. The Marketing Team of the Year Award for Group III began in 2023.
Below are the awards from 2023-24, a full list of awards history for MSUM is here.
2023-24 COLLEGIATE SPORTS COMMUNICATORS AWARDS - FULL AWARDS HISTORY
On the final day of #CSCUnite24 Wednesday held at Mandalay Bay, the results of this year's Creative & Digital Design Contest were announced. In addition to the ChangeMaker Innovation Award which was announced earlier, MSUM received 12 College Sports Communicators (CSC) awards and recognitions at the annual convention.
As part of new and expanded recognition efforts in this year's program, finalists for the Portfolio Contests were invited to the 2024 edition of the convention, with the winners being announced at Wednesday's Special Awards Luncheon.
Vice Chairman of the Creative & Digital Design Contest Patrick Murphy, who was in attendance at convention, had this to say on the results of this year's contest: "On behalf of myself and Chairman Riley Baker, I would like to thank all this year's participants in the Creative & Digital Design Contest. I'd also like to give a big thank you to all the CSC members who volunteered their time as contest coordinators and judges. I know we implemented some new changes this year and there was a learning curve as there is with any new methodology, but we appreciate your time and effort into making this contest a successful on this year."
Murphy went on to add, "I want to congratulate all of our winners and honorees for all of their excellent work. After personally reviewing almost every single entry that earned recognition, I can honestly say without hesitation that there are so many talented and innovative individuals in our industry at every level of collegiate athletics. I am blown away by the creativity I have seen and look forward to seeing this contest continue to grow in the coming years."
