The 2024 spring semester is well underway, and with it comes a new season of AU athletics. Supporting your college sports teams is a great experience to share with the people in your community, but it can be daunting to try to figure out how to do so. That’s why I sat down with the director of Asbury University’s athletic communications and events, Colton Back, to get some information straight from the source.
One way the athletics department is trying to raise engagement with Asbury’s home games this semester is through a significant increase in themed events, such as a pink out, Hawaiian night, Johnson Hall night, or construction worker night, to name a few. I asked Back what the process of deciding on those themes and introducing them into the athletics calendar was like.
“Sometimes [the students] don’t even like the sport, so what would draw them in in other ways that they could have fun?… I talked to our Screaming Eagles club, which is a club with that focus to really connect athletics to campus…” Back continued, saying, “We kind of empower Screaming Eagles to bring those themes, promote it, and bring it to our home events.”
When I asked Back to give some insight on some of the less self-explanatory theme nights, he told me, “a few of those are our athletic sponsors; the Kessinger Lee group, Faithful Platform, Lexington Clinic, those are some sponsors who support us, but we want to say thank you to them, so we put their name on our sporting event and we will honor them during the event at halftime or at a time out, and then maybe the contest for that night, there’s usually a student contest, will be the ‘Faithful Platform shootout’ or something like that.”
He continued by saying, “Then you have stuff like Ray Shouse night, which is our head men’s basketball coach, his son passed away and his name is Ray, so that is a game to honor Ray Shouse.”
I followed this by asking him to explain the best way for students to stay updated with what’s going on in AU sports. He answered that following @AsburyEagles on social media is the easiest way.
“Instagram is our most popular… We try to communicate each home game, multiple times usually…” Back continued, saying, “You might have a free night and see a post, ‘Oh, they’re playing at home tonight. Oh, it’s Hawaiian night. I’ll grab my buddies and throw on a Hawaiian shirt.”
He continued by saying, “Then our website is asburyeagles.com, and the cool thing about the website is you can go to the schedule page of our website. There’s a button, I think it says ‘add to iPhone’ and that will basically take our home schedule and bring it to your iPhone.”
Next, I asked him about the best way for students to support our sports teams.
“I think going to the events are huge… You don’t have to stay the whole game, maybe just drop by, check it out. If you come and you enjoy it, tell others. The other thing I would like is when you come to a game, post something about it and your experience. Tag us @AsburyEagles and we’ll share it to our story.”
Lastly, I wanted to know which theme nights he was most excited about.
“I think I’m gonna say Faithful Platform night… They just became a sponsor of Asbury athletics and they sell jewelry… They’re also going to do like a ring toss that night and they have somebody on staff who played at UK, a basketball player and we’re hoping to get him out to do like a shooting contest. People would know his name that follow UK sports, so I think that’ll be a really fun night. And there’s a Chick-fil-A night coming too… hopefully we’ll get to see the cow, maybe get some chicken involved… A lot of fun, and it’s a double header. Men’s and women’s teams play that night. Should be a fun evening.”
Asbury basketball has already begun, with their next games taking place at home against Campbellsville – Harrodsburg on Jan. 23 for the men’s team and at home against Simmons College of Kentucky on Jan. 20 for the women’s team. Baseball starts on Feb. 17 at home against Muskingum University. Softball starts on Feb. 20 at Shawnee State University, followed by playing at Midway University on Feb. 23, but their home opener is on Feb. 24 against Manchester University.