Tuesday, January 29, 2013

BEMIDJI, Minn. – Late on a Saturday night in July of 2012, a drunk driver swerved into oncoming traffic and collided with a car carrying Southwest Minnesota State’s head men’s basketball coach Brad Bigler, his wife, his wife’s grandmother and his five-month old son, Drake. Drake was killed in the crash. The driver of the other car had two previous drunk driving arrests in 2000 and 2005.



In honor of Drake and to encourage students and fans to not drink and drive, Brad and Heather Bigler, the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference along with the NCAA and the TEAM Coalition are bringing the “It’s a Slam Dunk—Don’t Drive Drunk” campaign to NSIC basketball schools.  The program has engaged Student Athlete Advisory Committees (SAAC) on each campus to create short (30-60 second) video to underscore the theme. Students from each school were allowed to submit video entries to be judged in a contest to determine a school winner and a conference winner.



Video submissions were due by December.  After the videos were submitted, they were judged on overall impact, creativity, memorable content, delivery and clarity of message.



Winning entries from each school will be seen during halftime of conference basketball games the weekends of February 1-2 and 8-9, 2013.  The NSIC’s most outstanding video will be recognized during halftime at the NSIC Basketball Tournament Championship games.



To help further raise awareness, on the weekends of February 1-2 and 8-9, each NSIC SAAC group will have a booth at their arena to encourage people in attendance sign a pledge card stating that they will not drive drunk. Each person that signs the pledge card will receive a blue bracelet with an inscription of the theme “It’s a Slam Dunk-Don’t Drive Drunk”, the NSIC and NCAA logos along with Drake’s name on it.



TEAM Coalition is an alliance of professional and collegiate sports, entertainment facilities, concessionaires, stadium service providers, the beer industry, distillers, broadcasters, governmental traffic safety experts, and others working together to promote responsible drinking and positive fan behavior at sports and entertainment facilities.

To view the Bemidji State SAAC video along with all the other submissions visit the NSIC’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/SlamDunkDontDriveDrunk?ref=ts&fref=ts

Portions of the release courtesy of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC)

--bsu--