If you take a walk around Binghamton University on any given Friday, there is a chance that you will be greeted with a sea of green. If you are lucky, you might even see Baxter and some of his friends celebrating “Green Day Friday,” and BU Zoo, the official student-run cheering section of Binghamton Athletics–led initiative that promotes school spirit on campus by urging students to sport green every Friday.
Green Day Friday and other initiatives like it are a recent trend. Juniors and seniors probably remember a time where school spirit was nothing but a concept they heard friends at Penn State or Michigan speak of. Nowadays, students are starting to show pride in their school. Wearing green and setting attendance records at sporting events are important steps in BU’s quest to build school pride.
A lot of the credit for the increase in school spirit has to go to the administration. Binghamton’s athletic director, Patrick Elliott, entered his position determined to increase school spirit, demand more athletically and academically from student-athletes and spread BU’s footprint.
“We are all Bearcats and we should be celebrating each other,” Elliott said about the way in which he views the school spirit initiative.
Another interesting method Elliot has used is his branding of the University on the uniforms of all Binghamton sports teams. Think back to the NCAA Tournament that just finished on Monday. In the first round, Maryland faced off against South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits — a mid-major Division I program — wore jerseys that simply said “State” on the front, giving people no indication as to who they are or where they’re from.
If you take a look at Binghamton, whether the baseball team is playing in the College World Series, or if the men’s or women’s basketball team is playing a conference game on ESPN3, the uniforms will always have “Binghamton” on them. Not Bearcats, not BU, only Binghamton. This is calculated, as Elliott has placed an emphasis on the value of name recognition on the state, national and even international levels.
“It is really important from a branding perspective that the Binghamton name is out there,” Elliott said. “People may not know who we are, so part of having Binghamton on our uniforms is being a unified institution, but also clearly telling the world who we are.”
With the help of Elliott, Binghamton has had an opportunity to increase its name recognition due to its appearances on the national stage. The Binghamton baseball team competed in back-to-back NCAA Regionals in 2013 and 2014, televised on ESPN3, wearing jerseys with the University’s name spread across their chests, while the Binghamton softball team competed against national competition in an NCAA Tournament Regional in 2015 in front of over 1,000 people. Arguably, the greatest success of Elliott’s initiatives may have came in the spring of 2015 when track and field stars Jesse Garn and Keishorea Armstrong earned All-American honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships wearing pinnies that bore the Binghamton name.
With Elliott’s new initiative, Binghamton University is set to garner increased name recognition from around the country if the athletics programs continue to improve and play on bigger stages.