By Carolyn Todd
The First Hook
Marketers like metalk a lot about the customer experience. We try to figure out what it is that makes customers want to come back and partake of our products or services again. Penn State has built one of the best customer experiences in the nation. That experience includes the tailgating, the interaction with other fans, the pre-game and halftime shows, the crowd, the crazy student section, the post-game tailgates waiting for the parking lots to clear out.
For away games it is visiting a new campus and a new game venue, experiencing their unique traditions and atmosphere, and good-natured bantering with opposing team fans – often being invited to one of their tailgates on an impromptu basis. None of this experience can be obtained by staying home and watching a game on TV.
For a football novice like myself when I started attending games, it was this customer experience that was the first “hook” – I knew nothing really about the game at first.
The Evolution of Players
The second aspect that hooked me was the chance to see college players evolve over time. Over a stretch of 4-5 years, you watch each of these young men develop their skills from their first appearance as an 18 year old in a spring Blue-White scrimmage game to their final appearance on Senior Day, their last home football game.
You watch them play every down during their career. You watch their freshman mistakes and the ups and downs. You feel the grief when they get injured. You feel the joy when they turn into difference-makers between winning and losing a game.
You are thrilled when they graduate, but also sad because they definitely will be missed.
Most of the college football players you come to know and love over 4-5 years will graduate and become successful in other fields besides sports. Only a handful will enter the NFL, and very few of those will survive more than a few years.
Bragging Rights
For the first ten years of our marriage, we lived in Easton, PA. I worked as a marketing director for a high-technology firm in central New Jersey.
That’s where I learned the value of following sports and being knowledgeable about sports. It helped me professionally in terms of being considered “one of the guys” as a female in a male-dominated high-tech workplace. As we all know, in the workplace, easy-going informal relationships can lead to formal work opportunities. And they did.
Every Monday morning, there would be a string of co-workers in my office, mostly male, to talk about Saturday’s college football games. There were a number of co-workers who loved Penn State, including some alumni. But there were also Michigan, Ohio State, Northwestern, Rutgers, USC, and Notre Dame fans.
Our common bond was football. The banter was constant about who would win each week. It was a great deal of fun to be in the center of all this discussion.
My co-workers were clearly admiring of the fact that I actually attended Penn State games. They were quite envious of me as I traveled to watch Penn State play.
While others watched games on TV, I had the bragging rights of having been in the stands. They were envious.
Or, sometimes, they were envious of my husband Terry. Because often a male co-worker would ask me “How did you get interested? I’d love for my wife to go to (name of school) games with me, but she’s just not excited about it. How do I convince my wife that it’s fun? To give it a chance?” These men were truly curious about how I had become such an avid Penn State football fan.
I never developed a coherent answer for them. I just took to football like a duck takes to water.
But it helped that Terry was patient with me when I asked dumb questions. It also helped that we recorded all the games, and would watch them again when we returned home, so I could benefit from the TV commentary on plays and Terry’s thoughts as we reviewed what happened.
I saved most of my dumb questions for the second time we watched the game so he could concentrate on the game as we watched it live.
So, how did we get to 100+ Games? Read Part 3 of 3 to find out this week!
And, if you missed it, read Part 1!
