Jocks For a Cause

This past weekend I saw a segment on an NFL pre-game show about Mark Sanchez, New York Jets quarterback, who is heavily involved in a number of nonprofits that help children. They focused on his work with Tuesday’s Children, an organization that helps children who lost a parent in the 9-11 attacks.

I think it’s great that Sanchez has taken some of his hefty salary and uses that along with his notoriety to support a nonprofit. I also thought it was generous when New York Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin founded The Jay Fund in 1996 (when he was coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars). The fund is named for Jay McGillis, his former player of his at Boston College who died of leukemia. Even though Tom no longer lives in Jacksonville, he is still active in the cause and fundraising efforts.

I do have some concerns about athletes that establish foundations and then expect the public to be the greater funder. Athletes have benefitted from their success both financially and with brand awareness. They have an obligation when they start a foundation to remain the face of the effort, be active in any fundraising, and put their money into the cause.

09.11.01, A Personal Reflection

The remembrance of September 11th that is being hyped by a number of groups does bring to mind how the event affected my life. My family had been in New York City that August and my husband and son had gone down to the twin towers one day. I had grown up in Jersey and remembered when the towers were built. People said then that they were ugly architecture being added to the city.

Returning to Florida, where we have lived since 1980, I had just taken a new marketing/public relations position at Scott-McRae Advertising, the parent of Cause to Communicate, the week before the tragedy. Our offices were then on the same floor with senior management executives of the Scott-McRae Group holding company which managed many businesses in the southeastern United States.

The morning of 9-11 as I walked to my desk I passed our state-of-the-art conference room where several execs had assembled. They were watching television. They explained that a plane had hit the one of the towers. Then the second plane hit. We all knew it was no accident.

The President/CEO of the holding company turned to me and asked “what do we do from a public relations standpoint”. I knew we had ads running in the newspapers on the weekend that we couldn’t get out of but we could change our creative.

Scott-McRae Group was the first company in Northeast Florida to run an ad asking for support for area nonprofits that were assisting in the aftermath. We gained an incredible amount of goodwill for starting the trend. And, in a way, it started me down the path to Cause to Communicate. Because after that day, it was very easy to see that life is very short and we should all be trying to contribute something that improves it for all.