Today the Northwestern Wildcats launched “PersaStrong,” a media campaign to promoting senior quarterback Dan Persa as a 2011 Heisman Trophy candidate. Persa enters this season after being named the All-Big Ten first-team quarterback in 2010, a season in which he broke the Big Ten’s all-time record for completion percentage with a 73.5 mark. He missed the last three games due to a ruptured Achilles, but still had a 5 touchdowns, threw just four interceptions and ran for another nine scores. He is healthy and ready to go for training camp.
“In addition to his 159.0 pass efficiency rating, Persa is a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar, a candidate for Capital One Academic All-America honors, a nominee for the NFF’s William V. Campbell Trophy and a member of nearly every major quarterback and offensive player award watch list.
“PersaStrong” is consists of three prongs:
• Media Awareness — Key members of the local and national football media will receive a “PersaStrong” mailing featuring 7-pound purple dumbbells in honor of No. 7 Dan Persa’s reputation as the strongest pound-for-pound athlete on Northwestern’s team and strongest quarterback in the country.
• Outdoor Campaign — Billboards touting Persa’s candidacy have been placed in the highest-trafficked area around Chicago as well as in a strategic location in Bristol, Conn., home to the ESPN family of networks.
• Electronic and Social Media — Northwestern has created a PersaStrong.com website featuring videos, photos and information about Persa that will be updated throughout the season. In addition, Northwestern has created the PersaStrong hashtag on Twitter to promote Persa facts, conversation and buzz among football fans and media.
And it’s about time Northwestern finally updated the design of their home court. Crews will begin working on the re-design in a few weeks and it’ll be ready for the upcoming season.
Go here to vote on the new court design at Welsh-Ryan Arena. I like option one the best.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, an official Google News site that generates millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports
He does regular weekly radio spots in Chicago and Cleveland and has appeared on live shows all across the world from Houston to New Zealand. You can follow him on Twitter