Wildcat Wednesday - HAVE YOU JOINED THE MOVEMENT YET?

University of Arizona Athletics

May 29, 2013

HAVE YOU JOINED THE MOVEMENT YET?

Three years ago we launched the “Wildcat Movement” campaign and set an aggressive goal of reaching 12,000 members in the Wildcat Club by June 2013. Achieving this goal will put us on the top of the Pac-12 and position Arizona as one of the leaders nationally in this category. I’m excited and encouraged that our goal is very achievable as we close out the year.

In the first two years of our “Wildcat Movement” campaign we increased from slightly more than 6,000 members to 11,220 members. Thanks to those of you who have joined and renewed your membership we currently have 9,200 active members. I’m calling on Wildcat Nation to renew your membership or join the Movement and add2,800 new members by the end of June to reach our goal of 12,000!.

As part of our effort to spread the word about the Wildcat Movement and finish the year with over 12,000 members, I’m going to give away some Arizona Wildcat gear to our current Wildcat Club members for simply tweeting “Join the Movement at www.wildcatmovement.com, #wildcatmovement.” I’ll look through my Twitter feed and give away gear to the first 10 fans who share this message, and then pick another 10 fans at random between now and Friday. Don’t forget to include “#wildcatmovement” so I can see your tweet.

We know of people who have donated Wildcat Club memberships as birthday, graduation and Christmas presents so there are a lot of creative ways to join. If you haven’t already, please consider making a tax-deductible gift and help us reach our goal, allowing us to move forward to be one of the best athletics departments in the country.

If we reach our goal, it will be a monumental effort made possible because of the generosity of our great fan base who believe in the University of Arizona and our 450 student-athletes.

Click on the link below to watch. The pledge form is at the end of this year’s video.

BASEBALL MISSES OUT ON POSTSEASON

It was difficult to sit through Monday’s NCAA Baseball Championships selection show and not see Arizona appear on the screen. As I tweeted on Monday, I’m disappointed for our student-athletes, coaches and fans that our team is not able to continue the season. I want to thank our great fans for the support they showed the team all season long. Once again Hi Corbett Field was a special place. We finished 21^st in the nation in average attendance (2,733) and 12^th in overall attendance (103,877). It’s the second consecutive year we’ve drawn over 100,000 fans. We have a young team that will work hard over the off season to get better every day. We’ll be back in the hunt next year.

While talking about baseball I wanted to touch on something I noticed while out at Hi Corbett this past weekend. On Saturday night, when I wasn’t watching the game, I spent time looking around the stadium and I was struck by the incredible sense of community I saw and felt. You could tell that people really enjoyed being there as we all cheered for the Wildcats. In today’s age of social media and HD TV, you still cannot replace the atmosphere and feeling of attending our events in person. I hope that never goes away. Thank you.

ONE LAST CHAMPIONSHIP

Our men’s and women’s track and field teams are the final sports competing in the 2012-13 season. The NCAA Championships will take place June 5-8 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. The UA women, ranked sixth nationally, have 12 entries heading into the finals. The 4x100-meter relay team and 4x400-meter relay team will both compete along with senior Georganne Moline in the 400-meter hurdles, senior Jen Bergman and freshman Nicci Corbin in the 5,000 meters and Bergman in the 10K. In the field events, senior Brigetta Barrett will look to win her third-straight title in the high jump. Junior Julie Labonté and senior Alyssa Hasslen are entered in the shot put. That duo plus sophomore Baillie Gibson are also entered in the discus competition. The Arizona men, ranked No. 22 nationally, enter the finals with three entries. Junior Lawi Lalang will double in the 5K and 10K and senior Edgar Rivera-Morales will compete in the men's high jump. Good luck, ‘Cats

PART 2 OF LOWELL-STEVENS FOOTBALL FACILITY TOUR

We received a lot of great feedback from the first of our video tour series of the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility. Below is a link to part two of the tour. This week we take you through the coaches offices. Remember, if you’re a current Wildcat Club member or football season ticket holder you can receive access to these videos before the general public.

FOOTBALL SCHEDULE UPDATES

Early today the Pac-12 announced start times and TV assignments for several football games. We now know the home and season opener vs. Northern Arizona will be a 7 p.m. kickoff on Friday, August 30. The game will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks. The September 14 game vs. UTSA will also be televised on the Pac-12 Networks, though kickoff time will not be determined until a later date. The October 10 road game at USC will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. and be televised on the new FOX Sports 1. FOX Sports 1 is replacing F/X as a Pac-12 TV partner.

As you probably know by now, the UNLV game which was being considered for a move to Glendale will be played in Las Vegas on September 7. Kickoff time has been announced for 7:30 p.m. and it will be televised on the CBS Sports Network.

Other game times and TV assignments will be released 12 days in advance of the date of the game, at the earliest. This is standard and gives the TV partners the opportunity to select the best weekly match-ups.

WEAR THE COLORS

Continue to do what you can to help Arizona Athletics and:

Join the Wildcat Movement
Buy Season Tickets
Wear the Colors (Especially on Friday)
Get Others to Do the Same

Bear Down with Pride,

Greg Byrne
Vice President for Athletics
University of Arizona
uofaad@arizona.edu