“Wear. Live. Think. Dream. BLUE!”
Of course, my first thoughts were – PURPLE! INDIGO! VIOLET!
I’m not quite sure how the ETSU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics came up with their newest slogan. I also couldn’t explain to you how, exactly, one can live, think or dream a color.
According to the press release issued by the ETSU Media Relations Department, the new campaign slogan “will represent a unifying and singular statement to be a mantra for current student-athletes, fans, administrators and alumni.”
Nothing brings people together like four one-syllable commands, punctuated by a color. Wear? Sure.
My favorite T-shirt is a bright (ridiculously bright) blue shirt from Threadless.com that features a cartoon sun merrily chomping away at a cartoon cloud. No, I don’t have an explanation for that either.
So yes, occasionally I like to wear blue, but not all the time. And I do resent the new athletic slogan commanding me to do so. “Wear.” Wear! WEAR IT.
The next demand from this new campaign slogan is “Live.” Live? Yes, I quite enjoy living. However, I’m not sure how to live the color blue. There’s probably some desperate little hipster chick somewhere in the blogsphere writing about how she lives the color blue every day. However, I’m certain that if Blue Hipster Chick exists, and has a blog, she’s probably still being metaphorical.
So, is the new ETSU athletics slogan encouraging students to be metaphorically proud of their “regional university of choice?”
I also don’t know how to think blue, and I’m pretty sure that in order to “dream” blue, I’d have to do something illegal – and probably a large amount of something illegal, at that.
It’s true that the athletics department has been struggling to drum up more interest in our university athletics.
It’s not as though we don’t have good teams – I have so much respect for our Lady Bucs, our volleyball team, our softball team, our intramural sports, our tennis teams (especially our men’s tennis team full of foreign hotties – purrrrrrrrrrr!), our men’s basketball team, our new soccer teams, golf, and so many other athletes who work hard for this school.
“ETSU Pride” just wasn’t enough to describe the way that sport’s fans feel about ETSU.
But I’m not sure that “Wear. Live. Think. Dream. BLUE” is what this school’s athletics department needs to be chanting, either.
Maybe the focus should be to draw more students in to the ETSU athletic scene, before attempting to command fans to live, think and dream it.

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