By Justin Rushia
For the ninth consecutive year, the SUNY Plattsburgh College Foundation has partnered with the Cardinal Athletics Department for its annual Game on for Giving contest.
The Cardinal sports teams began competing for donor support and the opportunity to win cash prizes on April 2. In this competition, each athletic and club team at Plattsburgh competes to raise the most money for their respective programs by asking alumni and fans to donate.
“The biggest thing for me, personally, when we started this campaign was to try to re-engage our alumni and have everyone feel a good sense of passion about Cardinal athletics,” Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreation Mike Howard said.
This year, Karen McGrath, the Vice President for Enrollment and Student Success at SUNY Plattsburgh, and her siblings are offering a total of $20,000 in cash prizes through the McGrath Family Challenge.
“I give annually to athletics and Game on for Giving,” McGrath said. “But this year is the 20th anniversary of my father’s passing, So I really wanted to do something to honor some of the values that he instilled in us.”
McGrath’s father had two strokes at the age of 44 when McGrath was only 12. She said his illness had a profound impact on their family.
“What we learned from that experience was that making lifestyle changes and working on things like your nutrition, your physicality and your emotional state can all lead to a stronger, healthier life,” McGrath said.
McGrath wants to help instill these values in students here at Plattsburgh.
“It’s fueled by fans, that’s one of the taglines, but I think it’s really fueled by the commitment of our student-athletes and our coaches,” McGrath said.
The Division III teams will compete for top alumni support, with $2,500 awarded to the team with the most alumni donors. Teams finishing second and third in alumni donors will receive $1,000 and $500 respectively. An additional $1,000 will go to the Division III team with the most overall donors.
Club sports teams are also in the running for donor-based prizes. The team with the most overall donors will earn $500, with second and third place receiving $300 and $200.
Bonus incentives are on the table as well. Cardinal Athletics will receive $5,000 from the McGrath foundation if the overall campaign reaches $80,000 and another $2,000 if it hits 1,200 total donors. Recreational Sports will earn $3,000 if its teams raise at least $3,000.
The first four teams—either Division III or club—to reach 40 alumni donors will each receive $1,000.
“The second objective is to try to raise money for our teams,” Howard said. “Whether that means new lockers in a locker room, TVs, or new pieces of equipment, this money can cover some things that normally we wouldn’t be able to cover outside of our budget.”
Currently, the women’s soccer team is in first place, with men’s soccer and women’s hockey right behind them.
“Last year, the money went towards our gray sweatsuits that we used as our travel gear,” head women’s soccer coach Whitney Frary said. “This year, it’s going towards locker room renovations, which hasn’t been done in 25 years.”
Frary credits current student-athlete involvement and having a well-connected alumni network as keys to doing well in the contest.
“Throughout the years, this program has had such a great alumni base and huge supporters in the community and everywhere,” Frary said. “Having a connected alumni network is a benefit for us, but you have to keep those relationships going. You can’t just let them die out.”
Every graduating athlete in the women’s soccer class of 2024 made a donation, allowing the team to achieve its goal of 40 alumni donors and 40 staff donors.
“We really tried to jump on those goals quickly,” Frary said. “The team was such a catalyst for that. They went around and asked everybody. They got everyone. So after we got those two, it was just about slowly setting goals every day for our team, for what we wanted to achieve.”
Howard credits the competition as a way for former Plattsburgh students to stay involved with their alma mater.
“I want people when they leave here to not feel like their athletic career is necessarily over,” Howard said. “It’s over in the sense that you’re not still running around the track racing, or you’re not playing hockey in a Plattsburgh uniform, but I want folks leaving here with a great sense of pride and then carrying that pride on for many, many years.”
