Letter from the AD
It's Here: The Husky Athletics Club
In March, NU Athletics took an exciting step forward by creating the Husky Athletics Club. More specifically, we’ve created your Husky Athletics Club, designed as the umbrella organization for six main areas: booster clubs, marketing and promotions, special events, corporate sponsorships, annual fund drive and merchandising.
The Husky Athletics Club will become our main arm of support for our student-athletes through marketing and development efforts. It is the entity through which all of our fan-centered initiatives will take place. To increase its accessibility to the Northeastern community, the Husky Athletics Club will be given dedicated offices within the Cabot Center. This new location will allow the Husky Athletics Club to accommodate operations with sufficient space and resources. By creating a more visible presence on campus, we will be better positioned to serve our students, alumni/ae, fans and supporters.
Through technology enhancements, we will also be able to better manage our database of alumni/ae, parents and friends to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date records. The Husky Athletics Club will provide an unprecedented base from which to generate support on a range of levels. The primary goal of the Husky Athletics Club will be to increase revenue and to increase attendance at our athletic events. To this end, we’ll be developing a series of new promotions designed to draw fans to our games.
Athletics enjoys tremendous support from the University in terms of resources and allocation of funds to support our 19 NCAA Division I varsity teams. Resources for scholarships are right where they should be, but the funds necessary for operational expenditures must be enhanced. Insufficient operating funds adversely affects our recruiting budgets for all of our sports.
We must raise funds from sources outside of the University, so that we can provide our teams with adequate budgets to recruit and retain top student-athletes. If we are to continue along our path towards excellence both on and off the playing fields, we must focus our efforts on annual cash contributions to support our teams.
Northeastern has made a commitment to excellence in each of its sports, and the Husky Athletics Club is being formed to make the same commitment to our marketing and development efforts. When you support the Husky Athletics Club – through annual fund giving, season ticket purchases, special event participation, or the purchase of collegiately licensed merchandise, your support makes it possible for us to field championship teams.
Coach Roy Coates Appointed Chair of the Annual Fund Drive
I am pleased to name Head Swimming and Diving Coach, Roy Coates, as the first chair of our annual fund drive. Roy will be assuming this new responsibility in addition to his coaching duties.
Roy has been with Northeastern Athletics since 1993 and has enjoyed tremendous competitive success (click here for a feature article on Coach Coates). Coach Coates is known for his tremendous recruiting abilities. I’m certain he’ll be able to transfer those skills to help us build a first-class marketing and development effort.
Roy’s appointment and willingness to assume a leadership role in our development efforts is significant, because this speaks to the level of commitment we continue to receive from our coaching staff. Coach Coates will be working with Jim Madigan and Brett Burchette, as they coordinate our fundraising efforts. In conjunction with this appointment, we are in the process of updating our membership brochure and enhancing the benefits of giving to the Husky Athletics Club.
If you have comments, questions or suggestions for our newly created Husky Athletics Club please contact Brett Burchette, Assistant Athletics Director for External Affairs at 617-373-2037. Our student-athletes are counting on your support, and I am looking forward to your active participation.
Go, Huskies!
Dave O’Brien
Previous letters
April 2003
Hello Huskies Fans!
Director of Athletics
• March 2003
• February 2003
• Q & A with Dave O'Brien
