SECOND DRAFT
Nicholas Cerbone
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135.142
January 22, 2017
Genres In My Sports Community
From the summer of my freshman year through the spring of my senior year, I was involved in the sports community at my high school. Although I participated in multiple sports in high school, I would say that football has had the greatest impact on me. Throughout my four years as a student athlete, I have contributed to the roles on and off the field. The area that I was involved with the most was team funding. Team funding is imperative to having a successful football program. Without the money from team funding there would be no buses to away games, no post-season banquets, and no equipment. The football community practiced the use of genres through team funding by letting people know that our football team needs help, controlling fundraising events, and persuading others for donations.
In order for team funding to work, people need to know that a new football season is beginning and the team is asking for money. The people that must be informed of this news include players, students, parents, alumni, and local fans because all of them care about the team and would hate to see the program collapse. The fundraising begins with the coaches in the summer when all the players come back for workouts and practices. The first week when everyone is back is when the head coach sets an amount of money that we need to raise. This is our goal for the rest of the summer, and it is written up on the board with the numbers written in oversized font. Next to the dollar amount is an oversized scale that is labeled all the way up with numbers and at the top is our goal. The coaches are using genres because they have a purpose, which is to inform us that we need to raise money and to persuade us by putting a reminder in the locker room in which we will see almost everyday. In this situation the coaches use logos to state the fact that we will not have a football program if no one participates. Therefore, the coaches are using pathos as well in which try to make it into an emotional situation. Next the team takes over by spreading the word through social media and verbal communication. We post announcements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and we even ask the school to post them on the school website. We also go to other sporting events at the school to talk to parents, alumni, and local fans. Through these forms of social media and communication we are practicing the roles of genres.
Now that we have reached out to our supporters that are football team is in need of help, we form fundraising events that will appeal to them. About five years ago we came up with the idea to have shoot-out. The shoot-out is a fundraising event in where the participants will donate money and compete to win in a clay-shooting contest. For this event we created an advertisement to encourage people to come out and help out the football program while having fun at the same time. We include prizes for first place winners as well as raffle prizes, auction items, and gift bags. This is a convenient event because everyone can participate. In this case our audience is mostly from freshman to parents. Because of such an open audience, we have the ability to appeal to all of them by including raffle prizes, auction items, and gift bags. The first place prizes would most likely appeal to those who are competitive. There are trophies for first place junior boys, first place men’s, first place ladies, and first place overall. The raffle prizes, auction items, and gift bags may appeal to those who are less competitive and better for those who do not wish to shoot.
Not only do we have a main event for our fundraising, but we are also given ten discount cards each to sell to our supporters or to just generous individuals. Each card sells for twenty dollars and each one contains over forty dollars worth of savings. Each card has our school emblem, team picture, and our full season schedule. So not only do we receive a cash benefit from the purchase of the card but it is also used as a friendly invitation to come to our games and support the football team. To sell these cards we stand outside local grocery stores, we go to other home sporting events, and we go from house to house in our neighborhoods. When we approach people to buy our card we begin by saying, “Hello, my name is … I am a football player at Cardinal Newman High School. Would you like to help support your local high school football team?” Then we explain what the card is all about. This method of asking for support is a genre. It is the same type of genre that the coaches were using on us, but now we are using it on the supporters. It involves persuading and informing the supporters of our need for help.
The areas of team fundraising all begins with the coaches. The coaches inform of us the amount that we need to raise before the start of the season. Then they motivate us by drawing a scale on the white board in our locker room that way we see it everyday. The scale will slowly fill up weekly until the end of the summer as long as we work towards that goal which is at the top of the scale. Then as a team we go out to multiple places where we can find generous supporters such as alumni, parents, and local fans. When we approach these people we persuade them to help the football team by either donating money or buying a card. Being involved with the team funding process for my football community was a genre because I had to inform supporters, persuade people, and control fundraising events.