Michigan’s Campy Russell talks about his job as the Director of Alumni Relations for the Cleveland Cavaliers, why the new ownership decided to open this office and what exactly he does as the director (run time is 5:50; transcript below the jump).
[podcast]http://www.lostlettermen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Campy1.mp3[/podcast]……
Stay connected with LostLettermen.com via Facebook, Twitter, E-Mail & RSS Follow @lostlettermen 
Lost Lettermen: This is Jose Bosch from LostLettermen.com and I’m joined by Michigan’s Campy Russell, a member of the 1974 co-Big Ten Champions and the Elite Eight team. Mr. Russell thank you very much for joining us today.
You’re currently the director of alumni relations for the Cleveland Cavaliers and, I’m not going to lie, that sounds very fascinating to me because when I think alumni associations I think colleges and high schools. Not so much a professional team.
How did you get into that job?
Campy Russell: Well I got into that job primarily because of our new ownership which was … our team was bought by Dan Gilbert some four or five years ago now, I guess has been the time.
Anyway, he bought the team and he was interested in kind of having a connection between, similar to colleges in some cases, having a connection between the folks and the players that have come before these players. Or the current players, if you will.
So there was some emphasis on just trying to reconnect with the former players and the former players that were here locally as well as former players that were around the country. Because we as an organization, we do a lot of different events and we do a lot of charity events for different organizations throughout the city and, in some cases, throughout the state. As well as activities during the course of the game.
So we wanted to try and involve the guys that were here locally in those activities as well as players that are outside the state of Ohio. So we just try to keep them engaged and keep them abreast of some of the different activities and things that we have going on throughout the course of the year. Just to try and keep them engaged in some form.
So that is the emphasis of it and that’s how it got started.
LL: You said it started about four or five years ago with the new ownership. So is this something that’s common with other professional teams or other teams in the NBA?
CR: Not necessarily. But I think there are some other teams that are beginning to look into that. Whether it’s basketball or football or in some baseball.
Because again, as we look at it, faces change, players change, all those things change, but there’s always been a relationship between fans and whatever era of players. So I think it’s incumbent on an organization or whoever it is to try and keep that engagement there because I think what it ultimately does is build a fan base, and continually building a fan base and also holding on to the ones that were a part of the organization early on in terms of fans.
So I think it’s a good relationship. I think it’s a good relationship to have because, again, it keeps everybody involved, it keeps a lot of people engaged and you’re always reaching back and trying to help out guys as well.
LL: That sounds so fascinating. Now your job in particular, are you making phone calls trying to get in contact with former players or are you arranging events? What are some of the things you’ve done?
CR: Well it’s a combination of all of that. No. 1 what you had to do was reach out to as many of them as you could, just to let them know that 1.) this activity or this group has been formed. And then one of the things that we also do is we salute some of the different teams. Whether it’s teams of the ’70s, the teams of the ’80s, and so forth.
So we have brought back some of those guys or we reached out to them. Just depends on people’s schedules as to whether they’re able to come back. But most of the time we get a really good reception from the guys in terms of wanting to come back and participating in some of the events that we do. And we’ve had different hardwood classic events where we invite back, as I’ve said before, teams of the ’70s, like the first team that was of our inception. Meaning that the ’70 team, I think the team started in 1970-71. And so we brought back that team. Then we brought back all the all stars that were in Cavaliers history. We brought them back to our game.
So we just try to engage those guys as much as possible and that is some of the things that I do. We also do other events throughout the entire … our footprint. Anywhere from Youngstown to Columbus to, in some cases even Cincinnati, where we’re trying to engage all our fans in terms of just trying to have them participate and we participate in some of the events that they have going on in their various cities as well.
LL: Contact information changes over time and it can sometimes be difficult to get a hold of players. What’s been the oddest way you’ve been able to get a hold of somebody?
CR: Well it hasn’t been necessarily odd because there is a, I’m going to say a close party line as it relates to players. You basically can call up one who then will pass on some information to someone else and then they’ll pass it on. I mean because most of the time it’s a close knit fraternity that most folks know each other in some form. They heard of each other or heard the name in some form.
So when you start reaching out to folk, typically you get a very good reception in terms of getting the information. So from the NBA standpoint, it has not been that hard for us to reach out to the players in terms of getting their numbers, addresses, e-mails and that type of thing.
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
Liked this story? Click here for Lost Lettermen’s RSS feed and receive all our great content
Click here to start contributing to our wiki database of over 150,000 former college athletes and help us answer the question, “Where Are They Now?”
