Road to Victory

New fund supports Crusader athletics, magazine delivers winning stories

This fall, Development teamed up with Athletics to launch a new fundraising initiative to support Holy Cross varsity athletics.

Today, the Crusader Athletics Fund is already on a winning course. About 450 donors have contributed $220,000 to date. A new publication — Crusader Nation – is the official magazine for the program, keeping supporters up-to-date with news and stories on varsity teams, exclusive features on individual student-athletes, and alumni events. The full-color newsletter will be issued two times a year.

Targeting alumni student-athletes, current parents and fans, the program — the first of its kind at Holy Cross — is raising funds to help support the needs associated with coaching, recruitment, equipment, travel, and financial aid for student-athletes. As it’s structured, a donor can direct his or her gift to benefit any one of the College’s 27 varsity programs or to the athletics all sports fund.

In keeping with the collaborative nature of this initiative, two experienced staff members — one from Athletics, one from Development — are leading the Crusader Athletics Fund initiative.
 
Scott Graham, athletic fundraising coordinator, came to Holy Cross last year from Northeastern University, where he served as the assistant director of marketing and promotions, as well as assisting with athletic development, from 2004-2006. “Holy Cross has had capital fundraising projects for athletics in the past, but we needed a more aggressive approach to compete with our Patriot League and other peer institutions,” says Graham, who serves as the magazine editor. “Many of them have been involved in annual athletics fundraising for 10 years or more.”

Working alongside Graham is Tom Cadigan ‘02, associate director of the Holy Cross fund for annual athletics fundraising, who has been working in the Development office at Holy Cross since October 2003. "This new initiative is a long time in coming here at Holy Cross,” says Cadigan. “It’s exciting, because all the money this new fund raises is entirely budget enhancing — over and above what is already budgeted by the College.”
 
While there’s a long way to go to reach the level of other colleges, Graham and Cadigan are excited about the results they’ve seen in only a few months and believe the annual athletics fund is off to a strong start.
 
“Holy Cross prides itself in striving for the magis — the more — in everything we do,” says Cadigan. “We owe it to our Division I student-athletes to provide them with the best intercollegiate athletics experience possible, just as we provide them with the best intellectual and spiritual environment possible.”

For more information on how to contribute to the Crusader Athletics Fund, please contact Cadigan at (508) 793-2415 or by email at crusaderathletics@holycross.edu. To make a donation, visit the Holy Cross Athletics Web site at www.goholycross.com and click on the icon on the right column titled “HC Athletics Fund.” Or go directly to http://www.holycross.edu/alumni/support/why/athletics.html

By Micaila Donovan ‘07