Dear Fightin Christians, I had a meeting today with John Barnhill (Asst. VP University Advancement); and Brian Feeley (Dir. Alumni Advancement). Good first meeting. Basically reiterated the points from previous letters to President Lambert. Presented the point to them that the Fightin Christian seems to be missing from the University and that alumni from our era wish we could celebrate our past while respecting what Elon has become today. I presented a few ideas on how to make this possible: 1. Allow alumni from the college era to purchase licensed Fightin Christian merchandise from the University. In order to avoid any confusion with the current Phoenix message/promotion this merchandise can be found only in an alumni section of the website or bookstore. It can read Fightin Christian Alumni for instance. 2. Have a Fightin Christian corner in the end-zone of the football stadium where they currently celebrate our two National Championships (which happen to have been won by the Fightin Christians!). 3. Elect the Fightin Christian to the Elon Sports Hall of Fame. After all it was the recognized mascot for the College for decades. Ideas 2 and 3 could be done during a Homecoming with merchandise being offered to coincide with such an event. My feeling is this would bring a huge smile to all our College/Fightin Christian alumni. I would hope we would support this by showing up strong at this particular homecoming and making purchases of this merchandise. Any other ideas are welcome and please send to me asap. Please however if your intention is to get the Fightin Christian back on an equal level with the Phoenix, or get a modification to the existing Phoenix to a Fightin Phoenix, this to me will be impossible and will weaken any realistic ideas we might put forth to the University. Whats done is done...we are Elon University and our teams are called the Phoenix. What we would like to see happen is an effort made by the University to bridge the gap between the College era alumni and the University era that I and I think many of you feel was not done 14 years ago. 14 years ago many of us woke up and our history was gone. I hope both sides can make this happen. Elon is a fantastic institution and I for one am very proud to be an alumni. I am also proud of our Fightin Christian past! I hope to hear something soon from the University based on todays meetings. I will continue to keep you informed. Ron Ehrhardt Class of 1982
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 02:49:39 +0000
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