Wednesday, January 26, 2011

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – For the second straight year, the ETSU women’s basketball grant team will host its annual Dean’s Challenge competition, beginning Wednesday night when the Lady Bucs take on USC Upstate.

The challenge, which began last year with a way to increase awareness across campus, saw just that. The four games apart of the challenge a year ago had an increase attendance of 36 percent. In total, the games played against Campbell, Lipscomb, Mercer and USC Upstate (from 2008-09 and 2009-10) saw a spike of 3,751 fans due to the Dean’s Challenge.

"The Dean’s Challenge, now in its second year of existence, has proven to be an outstanding way to generate excitement and attendance for Lady Buc Basketball," commented Senior Associate Athletic Director Barbie Breedlove. "I want to thank the deans that have participated in this challenge, as they are the ones who have made it such a huge success. A dean of a college is a bright and competitive person by nature. Our deans here at ETSU have shown creativity and very strong competitive spirit, and they have brought hundreds of extra fans out to see ETSU Women’s Basketball by accepting the Dean’s Challenge and making it such a successful promotion."

The Challenge will have two winners announced at the end of the competition as the colleges are competing for two $500 scholarships. The winners will be based on which college brings the most fans to the game, while the second winner is based on the largest percentage of tickets used (on their 200 ticket allotment).

At the beginning of the challenge, each college was awarded 200 tickets to their selected game. If the college needed more tickets, they were given additional tickets based on an increment of 25 tickets.