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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Final Fours for humanity
Habitat partnership to have visible presence at NCAA championships
Habitat partnership to have visible presence at NCAA championships
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By Jack Copeland
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
The NCAA’s unprecedented ongoing partnership with Habitat for Humanity International is making sweet music this week in Cleveland and opening doors in Atlanta — but its best work will be on display for years to come along the Gulf Coast.
Midway through a three-year partnership between the Association and Habitat, exhibits marking the two organizations’ efforts that spawned from the 2005 twin disaster of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be on display at events connected to the Women’s Final Four in Cleveland and the Men’s Final Four in Atlanta.
In a rarity for the NCAA, Habitat will have a visible presence this year inside game venues during the men’s and women’s finals. The partnership — known as NCAA Home Team — also is being celebrated in a fund-raising event involving a 10-foot-tall, 90-pound guitar in Cleveland, and an unusual project using doors to publicize the organizations’ joint message in Cleveland and Atlanta.
NCAA Home Team is a first for the Association — it’s the organization’s first long-term partnership with a national nonprofit group. When the hundreds of student-athletes, coaches and administrators who have wielded hammers and carried supplies at building sites look back on the experience, they’ll likely remember for years to come the families they built the homes with, who worked at their sides and told their stories.
Collaboration of concern
When NCAA historians look at the project, they’ll note a groundbreaking foray into community service that marshaled a membership’s outpouring of concern, the energy of its student-athletes, and the Association’s financial and promotional resources.
It started with the membership’s reaction to incomprehensible reports of destruction in New Orleans and along the Mississippi coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“They wanted a meaningful way to help Gulf Coast communities recover,” said Melody Lawrence, NCAA associate director for brand strategies and events, about the membership’s role in initiating a $2.5 million project that included $1 million in funding from Division II.
“They saw the devastation and wanted to make sure in some way that we helped. And they wanted to do more than help for the moment — they wanted to be there for the long term. It was the commitment we made to Habitat when we decided to choose them as our national partner — that we would be there when others might start to forget about the Gulf Coast.”
Beginning with the 2005 Division I Football Championship game in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the NCAA offered its championship sites as locations to do framing work for homes ultimately slated for construction in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. Student-athletes participating in those championships took time from the games to lend a hand with the work.
“Over the past year and a half, we’ve built nearly 20 homes, and more than 800 student-athletes have been involved in the builds so far — and it’s very far from over,” Lawrence said. “We’re halfway through the relationship.
“It’s been an amazing experience. It’s been a defining moment for me, personally, just to see what Habitat can do.”
What Habitat can do is involve families in need of housing not only in the construction phase, where they invest what Lawrence said is “hundreds of hours of actual sweat equity,” but also prepare them for the responsibilities of home ownership that include paying a 30-year, no-profit mortgage.
Since the Gulf Coast hurricanes, Habitat has more than 700 homes completed or under construction in the region, and currently is one of the few organizations actively building homes in New Orleans.
In addition to organizing membership and student-athlete involvement in the project, the NCAA also effectively has used its visibility to call attention to Habitat’s efforts — and this year’s activities related to the Division I basketball championships may be the most noteworthy evidence yet of that contribution.
Already, the NCAA has commemorated the men’s championship’s first return to New Orleans since Katrina struck by placing Habitat for Humanity logos on the basketball court for first- and second-round games there March 16 and 18.
In Cleveland, the birthplace of rock ’n roll music, the Association is a sponsor this year in the city’s annual GuitarMania! project. Modeled after Chicago’s Cow Parade, organizations annually adopt guitars featuring commissioned artwork for display in the city.
The NCAA’s guitar, sporting a 2007 Women’s Final Four design applied by Kent State University professor Jim Hurguy, will be transported (using vehicles provided by NCAA corporate champion Enterprise Rent-a-Car) to 20 events, including the semifinal and final games. Volunteers from the Cleveland local organizing committee will be on hand at those events to distribute information about the Habitat initiative.
Meanwhile, fans can log onto http://auctions.ncaasports.com to bid to purchase the guitar in an auction benefiting Habitat’s recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The auction — active until 4 p.m. Eastern time May 1 — also features five replica mini-guitars, one of which will be signed by coaches of all four participating teams in the Women’s Final Four. Each coach also will sign one of the other four replicas.
Opening doors in Atlanta
In Atlanta, the NCAA has joined with corporate partner Lowe’s in a unique project involving doors. A series of 65 doors will be erected in the city’s Centennial Park celebrating the participants in this year’s Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, while doors bearing information about NCAA Home Team will be set up inside the Georgia Dome to publicize Habitat’s work and the Association’s involvement. Lowe’s is co-sponsoring the NCAA Home Team builds in Atlanta and Cleveland.
“Along with these will be information panels that talk about the NCAA Home Team relationship with Habitat,” Lawrence said. “People can learn about the relationship and get involved if they feel moved to do that.”
Similar doors and informational displays also will be erected inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
Those displays are temporary, but they help ensure that permanent structures will continue to arise along the Gulf Coast.
“We wanted to open doors to our member colleges where we could, and provide opportunities for student-athletes to get involved through more builds,” Lawrence said. “We wanted to provide a lot of the platforms we have, through championships and other events, to get out the word about the great work that Habitat does.”
The result is new homes, as well as new presence for the NCAA in community service.
Midway through a three-year partnership between the Association and Habitat, exhibits marking the two organizations’ efforts that spawned from the 2005 twin disaster of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be on display at events connected to the Women’s Final Four in Cleveland and the Men’s Final Four in Atlanta.
In a rarity for the NCAA, Habitat will have a visible presence this year inside game venues during the men’s and women’s finals. The partnership — known as NCAA Home Team — also is being celebrated in a fund-raising event involving a 10-foot-tall, 90-pound guitar in Cleveland, and an unusual project using doors to publicize the organizations’ joint message in Cleveland and Atlanta.
NCAA Home Team is a first for the Association — it’s the organization’s first long-term partnership with a national nonprofit group. When the hundreds of student-athletes, coaches and administrators who have wielded hammers and carried supplies at building sites look back on the experience, they’ll likely remember for years to come the families they built the homes with, who worked at their sides and told their stories.
Collaboration of concern
When NCAA historians look at the project, they’ll note a groundbreaking foray into community service that marshaled a membership’s outpouring of concern, the energy of its student-athletes, and the Association’s financial and promotional resources.
It started with the membership’s reaction to incomprehensible reports of destruction in New Orleans and along the Mississippi coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“They wanted a meaningful way to help Gulf Coast communities recover,” said Melody Lawrence, NCAA associate director for brand strategies and events, about the membership’s role in initiating a $2.5 million project that included $1 million in funding from Division II.
“They saw the devastation and wanted to make sure in some way that we helped. And they wanted to do more than help for the moment — they wanted to be there for the long term. It was the commitment we made to Habitat when we decided to choose them as our national partner — that we would be there when others might start to forget about the Gulf Coast.”Beginning with the 2005 Division I Football Championship game in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the NCAA offered its championship sites as locations to do framing work for homes ultimately slated for construction in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. Student-athletes participating in those championships took time from the games to lend a hand with the work.
“Over the past year and a half, we’ve built nearly 20 homes, and more than 800 student-athletes have been involved in the builds so far — and it’s very far from over,” Lawrence said. “We’re halfway through the relationship.
“It’s been an amazing experience. It’s been a defining moment for me, personally, just to see what Habitat can do.”
What Habitat can do is involve families in need of housing not only in the construction phase, where they invest what Lawrence said is “hundreds of hours of actual sweat equity,” but also prepare them for the responsibilities of home ownership that include paying a 30-year, no-profit mortgage.
Since the Gulf Coast hurricanes, Habitat has more than 700 homes completed or under construction in the region, and currently is one of the few organizations actively building homes in New Orleans.
In addition to organizing membership and student-athlete involvement in the project, the NCAA also effectively has used its visibility to call attention to Habitat’s efforts — and this year’s activities related to the Division I basketball championships may be the most noteworthy evidence yet of that contribution.
Already, the NCAA has commemorated the men’s championship’s first return to New Orleans since Katrina struck by placing Habitat for Humanity logos on the basketball court for first- and second-round games there March 16 and 18.
In Cleveland, the birthplace of rock ’n roll music, the Association is a sponsor this year in the city’s annual GuitarMania! project. Modeled after Chicago’s Cow Parade, organizations annually adopt guitars featuring commissioned artwork for display in the city.
The NCAA’s guitar, sporting a 2007 Women’s Final Four design applied by Kent State University professor Jim Hurguy, will be transported (using vehicles provided by NCAA corporate champion Enterprise Rent-a-Car) to 20 events, including the semifinal and final games. Volunteers from the Cleveland local organizing committee will be on hand at those events to distribute information about the Habitat initiative.
Meanwhile, fans can log onto http://auctions.ncaasports.com to bid to purchase the guitar in an auction benefiting Habitat’s recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The auction — active until 4 p.m. Eastern time May 1 — also features five replica mini-guitars, one of which will be signed by coaches of all four participating teams in the Women’s Final Four. Each coach also will sign one of the other four replicas.
Opening doors in Atlanta
In Atlanta, the NCAA has joined with corporate partner Lowe’s in a unique project involving doors. A series of 65 doors will be erected in the city’s Centennial Park celebrating the participants in this year’s Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, while doors bearing information about NCAA Home Team will be set up inside the Georgia Dome to publicize Habitat’s work and the Association’s involvement. Lowe’s is co-sponsoring the NCAA Home Team builds in Atlanta and Cleveland.
“Along with these will be information panels that talk about the NCAA Home Team relationship with Habitat,” Lawrence said. “People can learn about the relationship and get involved if they feel moved to do that.”
Similar doors and informational displays also will be erected inside the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.
Those displays are temporary, but they help ensure that permanent structures will continue to arise along the Gulf Coast.
“We wanted to open doors to our member colleges where we could, and provide opportunities for student-athletes to get involved through more builds,” Lawrence said. “We wanted to provide a lot of the platforms we have, through championships and other events, to get out the word about the great work that Habitat does.”
The result is new homes, as well as new presence for the NCAA in community service.
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