About This Site

Hi, my name is David Barr, member of the Oklahoma State University graduating class of 2016. I have a bachelor’s in Sports Media with a concentration in Public Relations.

This site’s purpose is to give you an idea of who you are hiring, and why you should. Using the tabs above, you can easily find a link to my resume, and a post with links to all of my work from this university.

What I hope my work and resume will tell you is this: that I am a hard working, passionate and loyal person who takes pride in my relationships and my work. If you hire me, you are getting a driven, competitive person who will give you 100% every day and someone who will better the work environment I am entering through encouragement, friendship and setting an example of excellence.

Thank you for your time and I hope you find everything you want to know about me here.

Feature Story: Triple Threat

Having two seniors reach the 1,000-point plateau for a college basketball program is a big deal. But throwing a junior in the mix is just unfair.

“We’re really difficult to deal with,” Asbury University head coach Tim Brown said.

Seniors Kylee Gorby and Catie Fletcher have already hit the huge milestone for the Asbury University Eagles, and junior Brittany Warren isn’t far behind, sitting at 970 points in her career.

“It’s exciting to see when a team comes together like this,” Brown said.

The Eagles are in great position behind the play of their upperclassmen trio. They sit atop the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings and are looking to secure a second straight conference title.

“Several teams in our conference don’t have that leadership experience,” Warren said. “It automatically gives us a leg up on everyone.”

No kidding. Not only are the Eagles leading in the conference standings, they’re also leading the conference in scoring, are third in field goal percentage, and are fifth in rebounds.

“We’ve figured out how to win and how to be successful,” Fletcher said.

You couldn’t tell by watching them now, but that process of figuring out how to win was a long one for Asbury basketball.

“All three of us have struggled during our time here,” Gorby said.

When Gorby was being recruited for basketball, Asbury wasn’t exactly on her short list. Or her long list.

“I wanted to play Division 1 college basketball,” Gorby said. “Asbury was the last place I wanted to be.”

While Gorby didn’t have the Eagles on her short list, they sure had Fletcher on theirs, who recruited her during her senior year of high school.

Before Gorby and Fletcher arrived on campus, the Eagles had yet to have a 20-win season, let alone sniff the conference title.

“Asbury used to not be known for women’s basketball,” Fletcher said. “But we’ve really changed that perspective.”

Their freshman year, Fletcher and Gorby mostly came off the bench. But the pair helped lead Asbury to its first ever 20-win season, going 23-9.

It wasn’t the last one either.

“Since Catie and I’s freshman year, we’ve had a 20 plus win season every year,” Gorby said.

Warren came in as a freshman a year later, and helped see the team to another 20-win season, but also a second straight conference championship loss in the title round.

“Even though we lost my freshman year, and we felt awful about it, we really learned from it,” Warren said.

Gorby was especially frustrated by the second straight conference title loss.

“In high school, we lost in the regional tournament my junior and senior seasons,” Gorby said.

Last season, the Eagles were in a similar position to the previous two. Entering the conference tournament, they were 23-6, with Warren leading the team in scoring.

After clinching a spot in the conference title game, the Eagles were down late. But Gorby sunk two late free throws to clinch a 64-61 Asbury win for the school’s first ever conference championship as well as a berth in the national tournament, also the school’s first.

“For me, it was finally getting over the hump,” Gorby said.

The team celebrated by running onto the court and singing ‘We Are the Champions’. Unfortunately, the celebration wouldn’t last long.

The Eagles lost in the first round of the national tournament. But worse than that, tragedy struck as then sophomore Molly Harlin died from a condition called neurosarcoidosis, a spinal fluid disease that affects a small percentage of the population.

Warren was especially close to Harlin, and took the loss hard, as did the whole team.

“It was really hard then, but when we all came back to school, it was like it happened all over again,” Warren said.

Warren found it hard to even take solace in the game she loved.

“Playing basketball was really hard for me,” Warren said. “We all had our moments when it was hard to step out on the floor.”

No one would have blamed the Eagles for struggling that offseason. No one would have blamed Warren, or anyone on the team for sitting out for some, if not all, of the season. For a tightly knit team like this one, they had lost more than a teammate.

“As much time as we spend together, we eat together we travel together. We’re like sisters,” Fletcher said.

Anyone who has lost a family member knows it can tear a family apart. But that was an outcome the Eagles refused to accept.

“We all lifted each other up in those hard moments,” Warren said.

The team adopted the motto “All for 4” after Harlin’s number.

“We’re chasing a championship for a much greater purpose,” Gorby said. “It’s brought our team even closer.”

Fletcher and Gorby were named team captains for the 2015-2016 season, and Warren stepped into more of a leadership role during the turbulent offseason. All three entered the season determined to win and not just for them.

“Our main goal is to win the conference tournament,” Gorby said.

Warren echoed that determination.

“We want to do it for [Harlin], for God and for each other,” Warren said.

Fast forward to Jan. 2. With the Eagles struggling in the season’s early goings at 8-7, Fletcher poured in 14 points against conference rival Midway for a special win.

“I was eight points away from 1,000 going in,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher wanted to break the milestone in front of the home crowd, and wasted no time doing so, hitting a jumper from the left elbow in the second quarter.

“The announcer made the announcement and everyone got up and cheered,” Fletcher said. “It was a memorable moment.”

Less than two weeks later, it was Gorby’s turn, scoring hers on a layup plus the foul.

“Coach realized I was close so he started to call some plays for me,” Gorby said. “My grandparents and my family were there, so it was really special.”

Warren is 30 points away, with only one regular season game left in addition to the team’s conference tournament games.

“We’re hoping to play at least two conference games, so we’re not too worried,” head coach Tim Brown said.

With a lot to play for, and a lot of individual success, the Eagles feel confident heading into the last leg of the season.

“We’ve taken on attitude that we’re going to refuse to lose,” Fletcher said.

Brown echoes that confidence not just in his team, but in his leading trio as well.

“The key word for us this season has been focus,” Brown said.

“Our senior leadership has been critical, and we’re confident we can sustain that focus for the rest of the year.”

 

 

 

 

Advanced Sports PR: Feature Story

For my Advanced Sports PR class, we also wrote a feature story for the school we chose. The women’s basketball team at Asbury had an incredible season, but also a heartbreaking one. The link to the story is in my next post.

Awards Campaign

David Barr

Awards Campaign 2016: Catie Fletcher

April 6, 2016

Student Athlete: Catie Fletcher, senior guard

I chose Catie because of her impressive statistics, as well as her storied history with Asbury University. Catie was a part of Asbury’s first 20-win season her freshman year. Since then, she has been an integral part of leading the team to not just 4 straight 20-win seasons, but she has also lead the Eagles to two straight conference championships, their first NAIA tournament appearance, and this year, their first tournament victory. On top of that, in interviews with her, her coach and other players, Catie is seen as a leader for this team, and is a captain on the team.

Catie has been one of the leading scorers on the team over the past two seasons, but has not received any awards prior to this season. This season, she became the eleventh player in school history to surpass the 1,000 point plateau. Behind her scoring achievements, such as leading the team in scoring and reaching that plateau, the team has been able to make the NAIA tournament for the first time and repeat as conference champions. These are the achievements that make the best case for Catie as NAIA Player of the Year.

Catie is an exercise science pre-physical therapy major, and wants to be a physical therapist after she graduates. Other than that, she hasn’t been very forthcoming about any other personal details, and is a little shy. I chose not to include what little she told me about herself, as there’s not a lot of eye-catching material to work with. Had there been, I still don’t think I would include it, as Catie is the kind of person who would rather let her play do the talking. I think a campaign centered on what she accomplished on the court, and how she helped contribute to the team’s success would be more reflective of her and her personality.

 

 

Promotional Campaign: Online Business Card

For Catie’s campaign for NAIA Player of the Year, I chose to do an online campaign. I created a website that serves as an online business card. I wanted to use this approach for a variety of reasons, the primary reason being the best way to reach voters for this campaign.

The voters on NAIA Player of the Year all serve on a committee called the NAIA Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-America Committee. The committee selects players that are up for consideration for conference player of the year, which is determined by coaches in the conference. Since these voters consist of coaches and NAIA executives, I figured the best kind of campaign would be a simple one that presents all the facts in one place. Most of these are adults who more than likely are not Internet savvy, and won’t be swayed by a ‘sexy’ website or flyer.

I figured the best way to reach these voters would be via email, and an easy link to follow to the website I created. I designed the website on a template based on a business card. This way, it gives the appearance of professionalism, as well as brevity. I wanted to put all of the most important facts about Catie in one easily accessible place, and include only the most essential facts of Catie’s great season. The website includes several pictures of Catie, a brief couple of paragraphs on her accomplishments, a season by season breakdown of the team’s success with Catie’s stats listed, and at the bottom of the page, a simple message: For your consideration: Catie Fletcher, 2016 Player of the Year.

I included the season by season breakdown for two reasons. I first wanted to this to highlight the fact that since Catie arrived on campus, the Eagles have had 4 straight 20-win seasons, a feat prior to Catie’s freshman year, had never been accomplished. Additionally, I thought it would also show the growth Catie has seen in her 4 years at Asbury, and shows how impressive this season was for her as an individual.

I think this campaign would be successful because it is exactly what a potential voter would be looking for when trying to do research on who to vote for. It has stats, narrative and pictures. It includes the individual milestones Catie reached as well as important team milestones that were reached while she was there. It is also brief and to the point. It takes probably less than 10 minutes to read, and it is all in one place. I think since it would be sent via email, it would feel personal, which would make it memorable.

A potential drawback would be that since one of the main goals is simplicity that it is too simple, and easily forgettable. Since it is devoid of almost all flash, it may run the risk of not standing out. To this point, I would counter that these voters aren’t looking for a flashy campaign; they are looking for high character players who represent the NAIA well, and who have a good basketball resume. Catie’s school, Asbury, is a private Christian school with a reputation for putting character first, and Catie has an excellent basketball resume.

Social Media Campaign

For this campaign, social media would be a nice touch, but a largely non-essential tool in my opinion. Since the voters on Player of the Year are not members of the media or fans, social media is likely not a high priority for them. I would plan to direct any and all social media campaigning towards conference coaches early in the voting process, so they would be more familiar with Catie, and potentially pass her resume on to the voters.

I would use the Asbury Athletics twitter account for all social media campaigning for Catie. The account is run by the SID, Josh Stewart, and has a solid following and produces a large amount of good content. I would do so by using a hashtag: #Fletcher2016 and tweeting a series of promotional tweets following her successful games that could boost her resume late in the season. I would also link to the website in these tweets, and send some out directly mentioning the other coaches who have twitter accounts, as well as voters, if they do as well. This is more to promote Catie to the fans, who will hopefully follow suit and tweet these to the voters as well, but also raise as much awareness as possible in the Asbury sports community to Catie’s campaign.

Even if the voters do not have an active social media presence, the campaign will be noticed by members of the media who cover Asbury sports, and who do already follow the account. Gaining their attention would be a nice boost to the campaign, and could potentially produce some additional coverage for Catie and the team, especially since the team is having such a successful season. Catie’s great individual season could be a potential storyline for media members, and could draw the attention of voters, further boosting Catie’s resume.

I wouldn’t include any of the hashtags or social media campaigning on the website itself, instead choosing to embed the link to the website in several of the tweets themselves. This way, the site could generate more traffic, and the social media campaign wouldn’t take away from the goal of keeping the business card approach of keeping it as simple and professional and in one place as possible.

Link to website: http://davidbarr10.wix.com/fletcher2016

Note: I made the website using wix.com, which is a free webstie building website. I would pay the premium money to make the domain fletcher2016.com if this was a real campaign.

Awards Campaign: Advanced Sports PR

For my advanced Sports PR class, we picked a non-Division 1 basketball program and did a series of assignments covering the program we chose. I chose NAIA school Asbury, where my sister did her undergrad. It’s a small private Christian school, one I visited my senior year of high school, and I knew the kind of people I would be working with.

For one of our assignments we were supposed to pick a player to do an awards campaign for.

The next post is the campaign I designed.

Data Journalism Story: Background

The post labeled Data Journalism story is a story I wrote for my Data journalism class. I interviewed some students and a soccer coach from one of the youth affiliate teams of the professional club Liverpool about the growing popularity of soccer in America.

Moseppi’s: An experiment in branding

The previous post was an assignment for my Graphic Design class. I had to build a brand from the ground up, and design all the graphics and promotions required.

The link below is to my finished product: an authentic pizza joint called Moseppi’s, in honor of the closed restaurant here in Stillwater, Joseppi’s.

Moseppi’s: A Visual Identity Guide and Branding Elements

MyIFnalPri

Data Journalism Story

Women’s soccer is hardly the most popular sport on the OSU campus. Just ask sophomore accounting major Jared Minnix.

“Oh, I’ve been to every football game this season,” Minnix said. “Definitely going to be at all the basketball games too.”

But what about the soccer team?

“I mean, I knew we had a team,” Minnix said. “I think I heard something about them. They’re pretty good right?”

Yeah, you could say they’re pretty good.

The Cowgirls finished 10-10-1 this season, and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year, and eighth trip in the last ten seasons.

That’s more than the basketball team can boast.

Coach Colin Carmichael has taken the program from nothing into a contender.

Literally, nothing. The women’s soccer program started with Carmichael’s arrival in 1996 and has evolved into what is today: one of the school’s most successful athletic programs.

The growth and continued success of the soccer team at OSU mirrors a larger picture of the growth in popularity of soccer in the United States.

Nick Soutar is a women and men’s soccer coach in Dallas who grew up in England. He moved to the United States when he was 21.

“I would absolutely say soccer is becoming more popular in the U.S.,” Soutar said.

Soutar, 28, coaches four different select soccer clubs whose main functions are to serve as a talent base for FC Liverpool, a Barclays Premier League club, and one of the most recognizable brands in the soccer world.

“It’s like select soccer for the elite youth players,” Soutar said.

Soutar said that he thinks it’s too hard to pick out one specific reason that soccer is becoming more popular in America. One of the reasons he said has been critical is what European teams have done what Liverpool has done with Soutar’s club teams.

“The clubs in England are branching out their youth programs to other countries,” Soutar said.

England isn’t the only country that has done so, and Liverpool definitely isn’t the first club to do so successfully.

“Lionel Messi was picked up by FC Barcelona at 11 years old,” Soutar said.

Starting at such a young age is a norm for most sports here in the U.S. Soutar says it’s another major factor in soccer’s growing popularity.

“It’s a generational thing,” Soutar said. “Your parents didn’t grow up soccer fans because soccer hadn’t really reached the country yet.”

Europe isn’t the only place where teams are expanding their talent search beyond their respective homes. In 2011, of the 29 players on the Cowgirls roster, 17 were native Oklahomans, or 59% of the roster.

This season, of the 31 Cowgirls, only 13 are from Oklahoma, with the majority of players coming from other states including Missouri, Wisconsin and even Alaska.

Looking at OSU’s program, soccer has arrived in the U.S. Not only because the team has been so successful, and now has players from as far away as Alaska, it also is a women’s sport.

“Growing up in Europe, I didn’t know any girls who played soccer,” Soutar said. “The participation in the U.S. with girls is much larger than in other countries.”

The growing popularity of soccer isn’t the only contributing factor here. The enforcement of Title IX, introduced in 1972, which provides for the equal funding of men and women’s collegiate sports allows for OSU to fund the program.

OSU isn’t the only women’s soccer program that is seeking to grow. Joslynn Lawler, a sophomore defender, attends Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, a community college, and was recruited similarly to a Division I athlete.

“I was scouted in high school by NEO,” Lawler said.

While Title IX has been instrumental in the success of women’s sports programs everywhere, without Carmichael, the Cowgirls would likely not be the largely successful team they are.

“Soccer is getting bigger because of better coaching education as well,” Soutar said.

The coaches aren’t the only people becoming more educated about the sport. Another factor in recruiting players at young ages isn’t scouting at high school matches. In fact, it has more to do with an Xbox console than Title IX.

“The popularity of the video game FIFA has contributed massively,” Soutar said.

Tyler Williams, a Gamestop employee, said that FIFA sales have been increasing.

“It’s not selling on the level of the NBA games or the NFL games,” Williams said. “But it absolutely has increased over the past couple of years.”

Soutar said his younger players have surprised him with their knowledge of the game.

“I’ll have 10-year-old boys calling out plays and I’ll say, ‘How did you know that,’” Soutar said. “They say, ‘FIFA.’”

Soutar said the game’s realism actually helps give players a better understanding of the game and also introduces players to the professionals.

“It makes the game more accessible, and gives them role models and aspirations,” Soutar said.

Of course, elementary school boys aren’t the only audience the game attracts.

“I play, but I’m definitely better at real soccer,” Lawler said.

Neither are “real soccer” players.

“I’m totally obsessed with FIFA,” Minnix said.

If you need evidence of the growth of soccer’s popularity, you don’t need to look any farther than Minnix. Minnix has yet to attend a Cowgirls soccer game at OSU, or even watch a soccer match from start to finish on NBC (who signed a contract with the British Premier League last season to start broadcasting games, another huge factor for America’s growing interest in soccer according to Soutar), but can name nearly every major player in the Premier League.

“I’m not sure if I’m really a true soccer fan,” Minnix said. “But I’m definitely really interested in soccer.”

Video Project Experience

Making this video was a blast. I had a great time with my friends making a goofy video. It was fun to act like a movie director and plot out camera angles, write scenes, and all the while making it up on the fly. It was a great opportunity to be able to do whatever I wanted with the project and have some creative freedom to make a lighthearted short video. 

I used my iPhone’s camera to film everything and iMovie to actually put everything together. iMovie made everything really simple and easy to work with, and I was really pleased and a little surprised at how well it turned out. I used “Icky Thump” by the White Stripes and “Can’t Stop” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the music. I wanted action movie type music to make the satirical elements of doing everything at the last minute seem more dramatized.

What was challenging was as I was finalizing the project, the file got corrupted and forced me to re-edit the whole thing and re-add in the music. That was tough from a time-crunch perspective as some of the film’s elements were not entirely fictitious. Especially the last minute stuff.

All in all, this was one of my favorite projects due in large part to how well everything looked at the end. I was really pleased with how it all looked and sounded, and was excited to show it to my friends who weren’t in my class. they all loved it and that was really cool to me. I had made an actual video and people actually enjoyed it. It was just a fun time and good experience.