In this episode of Campus Conversations, President Noland sits down with Desmond Pierce from ETSU Athletics to discuss the “I Give a Buc” campaign and the “Be Great” initiative to support the holistic development of ETSU's student athletes.




  • Campus Conversations Video Transcript

    Welcome to Episode two of Campus Conversations. I'm Brian Noland and I have the honor to serve as President of East Tennessee State University. And I'm excited today to be joined by Desmond Pierce, who's on the staff in our athletic department. And we're going to talk some about some new initiatives that are underway here at East Tennessee State University that are allowing us to focus on the holistic experience for our student athletes. So, Desmond, welcome and give us a little bit of background on yourself, because I know you're new to this role at the university. Yeah, so I'm excited to be here. Dr. Noland. I graduated from here in 2014 and I was a track and field and cross country athlete. I spent some time coaching in the NCAA and in some other administrative positions. And my wife and I just, who is also an alum, just welcomed our baby girl into the world. Congratulations! Thank you. Had a opportunity to come back and to work in the athletic department. So I truly am excited and blessed to be back. Well, and you're taking a lead role in a new campaign called I Give a Buc. Talk to us a little bit about that campaign and then give us some visibility around the support services that it will help to underwrite -- some things that I doubt were here when you ran track for us. Yes, absolutely. So I'm thrilled to be part of this mission and the vision that Doc Sander has, our Athletic Director. With Be Great, and I'll start there, so Be Great is an acronym for be grateful, be resilient, be excited, be all in, and be together. So with that is going to lead over to our I Give a Buc campaign. So the I Give a Buc campaign, obviously we need funds to be able to support some of the initiatives that you're talking about that we're going to speak of. But with I Give a Buc, we're just asking for everyone to give a buck a day for 365 days, which is $365 annually. And with that, some of those initiatives that we didn't have when I was here, it's awesome to be back and to be part of something that is going to further us in our excellence in the SOCON and just better our student athlete experience. So, one of the things I'm excited about is I like to call it "life after eligibility" in a way. So we're preparing our student athletes for when there is no eligibility left. So with the mentorship program that we're working on, with the career services that we're working on, it's going to give opportunity for us to bring alums back, to be able to be those mentors to our student athletes, our staff, our faculty is involved in this mentorship as well, but it's going to be able to kind of have a dotted line into that professional world that gives our athletes a little insight of what they want to do whenever their eligibility is over, and also just for their student athlete experience, for mind, body, and soul, as we call it, we want to take care of them mentally. The landscape has changed drastically since I've been here. And to have those mental health services that we're going to provide, to have a sports psychologist that we're going to provide with this initiative is really going to help us better our student athletes for success in their respective sport, but also in their profession. We're going to give them a nutritionist that's going to educate them on how to be a better athlete, what to put in their body, what to not put in their body. So we're working on a fuel station that we're going to have for them as well, that all of this is - we're already great. You know, we already have athletes in teams who are doing some spectacular things, but this is really just going to push us forward and kind of solidify the excellence that we already have in the SOCON so this is going to make us even better. So I'm excited for what we're going to do with this. Well, a few weeks ago was Homecoming. It was wonderful to welcome alum back to campus and had the chance to talk with former football players, basketball players, golf and tennis. And we walked through some of the things that are new. And they talked about, you know, the memories they made, the championships that were won, but the opportunity to have the stage set for you in terms of career planning, career readiness, then on the mental health side, the support side, we're trying to prepare our students not only to win championships, but to be prepared to move on to successful careers. And this is a central element of the new campaign. So with the thought around the campaign, walk us through those elements again and define the one for me that you really think strikes to the core of what we're trying to accomplish at ETSU. Yeah, I think with just grateful, you know, to be a student athlete on a Division 1 level that is a lot to be grateful for, you know, so for our student athletes to have this opportunity to put that E on their uniforms is something for them to be grateful for. And I was grateful for it. It was a different logo back then. But still got to come back with the E -- A little bit of an old school Bucky. You know, so I think it's - I think our student athletes are thankful and they're grateful for the opportunity that they're given here to compete and get their education and with resilient you know, with everything that's happened the past couple of years with the landscape of college athletics changing, it really, our athletes show resilience every day. Just being a student athlete in general, they have to be determined to continue to move forward. So I think our athletes have done a good job of still winning championships. They're still- we have a lot of 4.0 student athletes. They're doing a lot in our community. So there's every year the GPA for student athletes is higher than the undergraduate population as a whole. Their graduation rates are higher than the population as a whole and think of the time management. You have practice early, you have film session, you have class, you have travel, you know, for sports like baseball in the spring, they're on the road for a week to week and a half at a time. So this is once again not only supporting our student athletes on the playing field, but giving in the resources they need off the playing field to be successful. And I agree on grateful. I'm grateful every day for the opportunity to serve this university, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to watch our student athletes compete. So if I have yet to contribute, how do I go about that? If I'm an employee and if I'm a member of the community, what's the contact point for me to be a part of the initiative? So we our website is live it's www. igiveabuc.com. So that's where you can go on there and make your donation if you're a faculty or staff, you can go on there and do your payroll deduction. So there's a lot of opportunity. Well, and one of the things that I enjoy about this in the way Dr. Sander has conceptualized it and brought it to life, is this is a campaign to support our students. It's not a campaign for bricks and mortar. It's not a campaign for scholarships. It's not a campaign to support salaries. It's a campaign to support our students, to support them while they're here, and then to prepare them for life after college. So when he first gave me the name, I go Doc, that's an interesting name. But the more we worked through it, he was right. We are supporting our student athletes one buck at a time. Yes. Yes. And I agree. I think, you know, I love the I Give A Buc. You know, I love that portion of it. But with the be great and and you'll see it all over the athletic department. You see it on our doors. It's on doors. You'll see it's all over the QR codes anywhere, you'll be able to see it. So I think it with that E in the middle, it just resonates with a lot of people that have pride in that. And it's not to better your parking spot, it's not to get a better seat in the stadium. It is truly to take care and to better our student athlete experience. So that's what is great about it because this is going to help 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road. So I've had the honor to serve in this position for a number of years, and there are a couple of traditions we have at the institution that I think are really going to be wonderful components to wrap into this campaign. You know, every year at Halloween, our student athletes are providing a safe forum for young people from across the region to trick or treat. And then every year at Christmas, we've got someone who dresses up in a Santa costume. Santa is real. Retract everything I said. It's Santa's helper, who helps pass the Christmas cheer. Big Fred, offensive linemen, did that for a number of years, but it's more than things around milestone events like Halloween and Christmas. Our student athletes volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club. They read in the local elementary schools. They've served food in the homeless shelters downtown. So from your perspective as a student athlete, I know you were engaged in service. Talk to me about how that service component helped prepare you for the role that you have today in the roles you had prior to return home to ETSU. Yeah, I think, you know, that kind of falls into all in and together. I was actually at Homecoming and I ran into Robin Crumley, who's the director at the Boys and Girls Club. And I remember every single year we would go over there and we would serve. And it's just a full circle moment to come back and see her at a football game and talk about the impact that our men's basketball team is having now, that our football team is having over there with those kids. So for me, it meant a lot. You know, I think it makes my job a little bit easier to now come back in this position and follow up with those people maybe 10 years later, but say, hey, I remember working with you. I remember serving here, and I remember the impact that it had on me as a student athlete to see the joy of the kids in the community just by interacting with. I was just a cross-country and track runner, so it's like it was it was pretty cool. And I say to our athletes all the time in our community, they are our young children's heroes. You know, when my son was young his hero was A.J. Merriweather. A.J. was the greatest basketball player in the world because that's who Jackson had the opportunity to watch. So the impressions that our student athletes have in the minds of individuals across the region, particularly young men and women, they're role models because for many folks across our region, the first individual that they've seen is our student athlete, the first student who they've had the opportunity to see who's gone to college, may be someone from our community who's gone here to ETSU. So the chance to make a difference extends beyond our campus and beyond our classrooms. Yes, exactly. So with all of this, you know, it's kind of full circle and we better the student athlete experience and it's only going to push them forward a little bit to be able to give back. And there's going to be so many different ways they can give back. Well, thanks for your leadership. Thanks for what you do for the university and to everyone thank you for your support of the Be Great initiative and please contribute to I Give a Buc. Godspeed and go Bucs. 

 

East Tennessee State University was founded in 1911 with a singular mission: to improve the quality of life for people in the region and beyond. Through its world-class health sciences programs and interprofessional approach to health care education, ETSU is a highly respected leader in rural health research and practices. The university also boasts nationally ranked programs in the arts, technology, computing, and media studies. ETSU serves approximately 14,000 students each year and is ranked among the top 10 percent of colleges in the nation for students graduating with the least amount of debt.

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