Cheerleaders at Virginia State University usually save their Woo Woo welcome for football or basketball, but yesterday's pep rally was for a different sport -- auto racing.
No, the school hasn't decided to sponsor a car. NASCAR used the pep rally to invite student participation in a different way, through internships and, eventually, jobs.
Woo Woo cheerleaders and Trojan Explosion drummers led students to the engineering building for a Diversity in NASCAR symposium featuring African-Americans who work for a NASCAR racing team, for racetracks or for NASCAR itself.
Events began when the pace car for the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway drove onto campus leading two show cars: the No. 8 U.S. Army car driven by Mark Martin and the No. 99 Claritin car driven by Carl Edwards Jr.
"It's trying to find a formula that makes NASCAR relevant to [historically black colleges and university] campuses," said Samuel Belnavis, chief diversity officer for Roush Fenway Racing, which owns the 99 car. "It seems to be working. Students know about pep rallies. They see the cars and make noise."
Dr. Keith Williamson, chairman of the university's department of engineering and technology, was delighted.
"I've been a NASCAR fan all my life," he said as he opened the symposium. "It was incredible to see the pace car roll up University Avenue."
Williamson's devotion to the sport is relatively unusual among African-Americans. That's what NASCAR is trying to change through its NASCAR College Tour. Virginia State University was the first school to have a pep rally format. Last year, the school was the first to offer a course in the business and marketing of NASCAR. A VSU student also talked about her internship last summer in the motorsports industry.
Like the class, the symposium took a serious approach. Participants offered advice that could apply to students starting out in almost any industry while encouraging them to consider NASCAR.
"A lot of students want to go into sports marketing, and they mention the NFL or NBA," said Todd Ervin, director of multicultural marketing for the International Speedway Corp., which controls Fontana, Calif., and Daytona Beach, Fla., racetracks. "We're a sports industry. We hire accountants, marketers, engineers, videographers."
Dawn Harris, senior manager of diversity affairs for NASCAR, said many skills are transferrable, even if students don't know a lot about auto racing at the outset. "I had no clue about motorsports," she said, but she did have a background in marketing and multiculturalism.
She encouraged students to maintain contacts, network, keep skills current, give back to the community, be professional and know that "your reputation does precede you."
"The job market is tight," she said. "You can't just post a resume on Monster and wait for calls."
Knowing people is the key to getting jobs, Belnavis added, and events like the diversity symposium are a good way to get to know people.
"What we are talking about is access," he said.
Posted By: A Dole
Monday, September 8th 2008 at 10:57AM
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