Bobcat Athletics Lauded for No More Stolen Sisters/No More Stolen Relatives Games
6/19/2023 2:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball
Montana State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams rallied around the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples cause last winter, and this week the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) honored that campaign with its Unity Award.
Montana State's men's and women's basketball teams rallied around the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples cause last winter, and this week the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) honored that campaign with its Unity Award.
"We are honored to receive the NACMA Unity Award for the No More Stolen Sisters/No More Stolen Relatives games bringing awareness to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples epidemic," said MSU Director of Athletics Leon Costello. "Thank you to Kola Bad Bear, the MSU Athletics Marketing team, MSU American Indian Council, and the MSU community as a whole for making this important initiative a huge success."
NACMA created the Unity Award to recognize an affiliated school's marketing team for creating a campaign or initiative associated with diversity and inclusion. For this year's award, a campaign must have been executed between March 2022 and March 2023. "The Unity Award provides us a chance to celebrate the efforts of many talented marketing departments at institutions across our country who have placed emphasis on promoting awareness surrounding diversity and inclusion and utilized their platforms to lift the voices of student-athletes," said NACMA President and University of Maryland Senior Associate AD for External Operations Carrie Blankenship.
With inspiration from Kola Bad Bear and members of the Bobcat women's basketball program in 2020-21, the MSU women's program staged its first No More Stolen Sisters game. Bad Bear, a member of the Crow tribe, and her teammates and coaching staff embraced bringing to light that more than 5,000 Native American women disappeared or were murdered in 2016 alone.
"Raising awareness and educating the community on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples has been a cause that I have always cared about," Bad Bear said, "but was lucky enough to do something for it at the collegiate level using basketball, which had helped me with where I am now. It's more than a sport, more than a game, and I think it's important to use your voice and platform for something bigger than yourself, especially at this level, in a college town like ours, to reach communities that are our neighbors, next to the reservations where this epidemic is happening."
The initial No More Stolen Sisters game took place in 2020-21, and in 2022-23 the men's basketball program – featuring star forward RaeQuan Battle of Washington's Tulalip Tribe – joined the cause. Throughout its course, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples game has grown to include educational outreach moments, personal testimonials, and in-game features such as the Bobcat Singers, which include former Bobcat football star Leo Davis, of Lakota and Blackfeet Tribes.
NACMA judged entrants for the Unity Award – finalists included the University of Arizona and the University of Oklahoma – on community impact, collaboration with other campus entities, innovation, and potential future impact on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging and Justice mission. Lisa Perry, Director of MSU's American Indian Council, lauded the campaign and NACMA for drawing awareness to an important, under-recognized societal plague.
"Thank you to the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators for recognizing the important and ongoing work of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples epidemic," Perry said. "Partnering with Bobcat Athletics has been reciprocal and sincere - the marketing team has been humble, willing, and open in learning what this movement is about. We thank them. Making the No More Stolen Sisters/No More Stolen Relatives awareness games is a collaboration that empowers students, knowledge and culture keepers, community members."
Bad Bear hopes the award, and the series of games, continue to draw attention to its cause. "I think it's amazing that this campaign was spotlighted at the national level. It shows how far we have come in working together at MSU in creating this campaign as well as how much action we have taken to raise money and donations for this initiative. I wanted to raise awareness in Montana, but it feels so rewarding that it is taken nationally now for more people to be aware of this and to start using their voices that some people may never get because it was taken from them. I think it's bringing some sort of justice. It may be small but it's a step in the right direction and I'm hoping we can build on this."
According to Perry, one of the satisfying elements is the project's collaborative nature. "The American Indian Council and MSU Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Student Association along with several community members were integral to helping produce these events," she said. "We do this work with the intent of creating awareness, as well as healing and good energy to our relatives and communities who are experiencing the reality of loved ones who are missing or have been murdered."
Bethany Cordell, Bobcat Athletics' Associate AD for Annual Giving and Fan Engagement, indicated that the 2023-24 No More Stolen Sisters/No More Stolen Relatives games will be announced when schedules are finalized later this summer.
#GoCatsGo
