Georgia Gymnastics Recruiting Website (Medium Journal 1.0)
A capstone project for UGA’s Masters of Arts in Emerging Media.
I learned so much working in collegiate athletics, most of which is not applicable to my capstone project. However one thing I learned was that the collegiate athletics recruiting process is broken.
In the modern climate of college athletics, recruiting is everything. Every team is competing to attract dozens of student athletes. The most competitive programs across the country compete to attract student athletes to their school. Usually a competitive market leads to high effeciency from each competitor trying to get a leg up on the other (I am having flashbacks to my Terry classes just writing that.) However, this is not the case in college sports.
Coaches and their staff spend hours upon hours vying for recruit attention. But they are all doing so in the same ways. Sending mail, reaching out via phone calls and texts, planning and hosting campus visits, visiting the recruits in person, all schools are doing basically the same things. This means that the only way to stand out is to do more of this stuff than other schools. This means that recruits are overwhelmed by floods of texts, calls mail etc while staffs are being overworked. Ultimately its not good for anyone.
The University of Georgia Gymnastics program is no different. Coaches and staffs spend a ton of time recruiting agaisnt the likes of Auburn, Bama and Florida locked in an arms race of the same old tactics. The recruits suffer from information fatigue while coaches and staffs suffer from the fatigue of being overworked.
The Solution
Recruiting is all about finding a way to stand out. So why do all schools do it the same way? Why not try something different.
This idea originally came to me when I was first learning web development. I was starting to realize that developing a website was not as intimidating as I originally thought. I was also realizing that a website can do a lot of different things. Websites can host a ton of different types of media. Websites can be interactive. Websites can do a lot of things that traditional college athletics recruiting mediums can’t.
So thats the idea, use a website to fix the problems facing collegiate athletics. Put the pertinent info (that before was spread out) into one place. Simplify the whole process for recruits, their families, coaches and staffs.
The Client
Next I needed to find a team that A: was cool enough to run with my idea and B: was a good fit. Football is of course the biggest juggernaut in the UGA athletics recruiting scene and I have a lot of experience working in the football recruiting space. That being said they weren’t the best fit. You see, they recruit hundreds of kids from all over the country and the stakes are high, real high. If you are going to try out a new idea you don’t want to start with the top dawg. That being said, I wanted to work with a program with a lot going for it. I wanted to work with a program where the idea could make a difference.
The Georgia Gymnastics Team turned out to be the perfect client. You see, gymnastics is huge at Georgia. They pack 10,000 plus fans into Stegeman coliseum for every home meet. Not only that, they have been damn good. With Ten National Championships the Georgia Gymdogs have more championships than any program in the NCAA. Recruiting is also paramount to the programs success. Over the years they have recruited some of the best in the world (I am talking Olympians.) Each year the collegiate gymnastics space gets more competitive as people start to see the value in investing in the sport and investing in women’s sports in general (about time). Schools like Auburn (boo), LSU (ew) and Florida (gross) have developed gymnastics powerhouses of there own in the past 10 or so years. This has made it increasingly hard for Georgia to stand out and to recruit. So there’s the need.
It also worked well because in gymnastics they don’t recruit hundreds of kids but rather dozens. This means that there is a big enough sample size for me to work with (and do user testing on) but not to be ovewhelmed by. Plus I had a close relationship with many of the coaches on staff. I pitched the idea to them and they loved it.
The Product
So here we are with an idea and a client. Now comes the fun (and tricky) part, creating a product. I used Wordpress to create http://gloryglorygodawgs.com . I used Wordpress because I thought it would be the best way to make a site that I could ultimately pass off to the coaches and staff to update themselves. The ability for the coaches and staff to be able to update the site after I give it to them is hugely important. I want them to be able to update the site as needed per recruiting cycle. I don’t have time to keep doing it myself every year. Thats why I tried to use evergreen photography, video etc whenever possible and make the other stuff easy to update.
Other than Wordpress I used just about every app possible on the adobe creative cloud. I really wanted the website to be eye catching and stand out. I tried to include captivating videos, sharp images and well designed graphics on every page of the site. Presenting boring info in exciting ways.
I am really excited with how some of these still graphics came out but even more excited with how the motion graphics and video came out but you will just have to visit the site to see more of that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
These graphics, motion graphics and videos all follow a strict style guide that I developed. This style guide optimizes a similar look and feel to Georgia Gymnastics brand (a brand I worked to develop along with Lijah Galas in my time as a graduate assistant for the athletic department). It is however differentiated to be optimized for web and stand out as its own unique sub-brand. The style combines a condensed and bold “Morganite” typeface with powerful and widely tracked subheaders using the “Gt-America typeface”. This type treatment allows me to run long page headers while maximizing legibility-making the style perfect perfect for web. I also used the colors white and red strategically knowing that red catches the eye but white actually has more contrast on a dark grey background. I made sure to use imagery that conveyed the passion and culture of the Georgia Gymdogs and their fans without making current student athletes the focal point (so to limit the amount of changes the client has to make when I pass the website off to them).
As for the actual pages of the site. I used feedback from my surveys and interviews to know what to put on the site. Obviously things like financial aid, academic info and staff were important to include but I also learned through my interviews that recruits want to have a chance to interact with current athletes not just the coaches and staffs of teams. This lead me to including the testimonials section. I also wanted to show what makes UGA different from the unrivaled facilities to the tradition of success- this site has it all.
Through my presentation in December, I received a ton of valuable feedback from both my peers and industry professionals. One of the most valuable pieces of feedback I got was to remember my goals and make sure the site prioritized these goals. My goals were ultimately to drive people to the CKC camps page and/or get them to fill out the recruiting questionaire. My main adjustment was including CTA buttons on each of the pages of my website which took the user directly to the camp site or the recruiting questionnaire. These pages ultimately get the recruits in contact with the coaching staff.
I learned a few other things through the process as well. Like less is more. I don’t need to overload the site with tons and tons of information. Instead I need to find out what info is important and present it in a very attention grabbing and concise way. I also need to think client first in everything I do. Try different things to put myself in the mind of the client.
One of the best tools for putting myself in the mind of the client was user experience testing. I spent hours thinking (over thinking) the details of the user experience journey of gloryglorygodawgs.com- trying to think of every potential hiccup or speedbump for visitors of the site. That being said, it is impossible to fully anticipate the needs of users and perfect the experience without talking to the users in your target audience. That is where user experience testing comes in. I met over zoom with 8 people in my target audience (female student athletes) asking them a series of pretest questions, observing them attempt tasks on the sight and asking post test questions. These meetings gave me a new perspective and provided tremendous insights to the ways my target audience interacted with the product.
I got several pieces of feedback from user experience testing that I used to improve the website. Some were small things like changing “CKC Camps” to Courtney Kupets Carter Camp to eliminate any unnecessary confusion. Others were less simple- for example I noticed that several of my users instinctively went to the website on their phones, so I needed to optimize the website for all sizes including mobile and tablet. I also got a couple of fresh ideas that I hadn’t thought of like adding a page about north campus to show off one of the places that makes the University of Georgia so unique. Likewise I added a page about the current team that is easy to update. These are only a few of the updates I made in response to user experience testing.
The Journey
Everyone's Journey through EM is different. Mine is really different. I would be lying if I said it was easy. I thought I wanted to do sales and marketing my first 3.5 years of college. Then Covid hit and well I was bored. I started to play around with graphic design, and then some video, and then some web development. I realized I was passionate about that kind of thing. I knew it was too late to get my certificate so naturally I was thrilled to find out there was a graduate offering.
I spent my first 1.5 years in the program as a graduate assistant for the athletic department. First I was an online student so that I wanted have to worry about potentially missing classes when I needed to work or travel for sporting events. Then I moved to in person because it was easier for them to pay my tuition that way and I was in Athens anyway. Then I accepted a job in Atlanta and am now moving back online. Crazy right? The cool thing is, the people in this program have made it so smooth. The professors I have had have been so welcoming, classes felt fun and office hours felt casual. When I had the opportunity to pursue my dream job the program found a way to help me make it work and I will forever be grateful for that (shout out Chris and Leah). Moving in to in person classes meant getting to hang with some of my classmates. They were also cool and made my experience easier and more fun. I am excited to see where all these talented people end up. I am also thankful to have had the opportunity to meet, work with and make connections with people in this program.
All that being said, it hasn’t been easy. This program has challenged me in a lot of ways. I’ll be honest, Xcode was the bane of my existence for a semester. I got by and learned a lot but I had some long nights (and some all nighters. Working as a graduate assistant traveling with teams while doing EM projects on a bus or in a hotel room was a grind. These past 7 months, starting a brand new job in the NFL while developing an Alpha and a Beta and a design system and a User Experience Research Plan- executing that UXRP and developing my capstone product has really whooped my ass. I am talking several very late nights a week. I have felt at times overwhelmed and at times discouraged. Thankfully the people in this program have been there when I needed them
The cool thing is that it is worth it. I enjoy what I do for class and I enjoy what I do for work. I enjoy the people I am meeting along the way. And a quick step back makes me realize how fortunate I am to have had the experience I did at UGA, how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to pursue the job I have, how fortunate I am to be a part of this program, and how grateful I am to the people that make up this program.
To my cohort- thanks you guys! Thanks for the laughs and the hangs. Thanks for the help and advice. I truly could not have made it through any of these classes on my own. This cohort is so talented. I was so impressed by the work I saw and the conversations I had in this program. I can’t wait to see what y’all do with your careers and the impact y’all are able to make!
My Advice
Find your passion and find your niche. I really believe that when people find something they are passionate about, they can often find success in the same place. Because hard work can so often lead to success and hard work is a lot easier when working on things you are passionate about. Through EM you are exposed to a lot of different areas. Graphic design, User Experience design, Web development, App development, the list goes on. Find the thing that you are passionate about and run with it. Trust that the people and the program will help you find and develop your own skillset.
Next, have fun. I know that is a cliché but it is true. UGA is a special place. Athens is a special place and an incredible town. This program is a lot of fun. Slow down and make sure to take a second to look around and enjoy the little things.