Gustavus student-athlete, Carolyn Draayer, was hired last spring to produce two promotional videos for the MIAC. The most recent video, which was released last month, highlights the MIAC’s core value of quality athletics. The MIAC became interested in Draayer after discovering her promotional video for the Gustavus women’s hockey team, and contacted Gustavus’ Director of Sports Information Ethan Armstrong to find a potential candidate for the position.
“I told them, ‘you know, we have this girl, Carolyn Draayer, who did these videos this year for us as just a side project for an internship. She did awesome. I’ll put you in contact with her, I think she might be interested.’ They called her, and she jumped on board,” Armstrong said.
Draayer traveled around to different schools in the conference during the summer months to shoot the video. The production required the coordinating of all 13 schools in the MIAC and 22 sports. Each school was given a sport to represent, and Draayer worked with each school to recruit athletes to be featured in the video.
“We wanted to represent as many sports as we could. I worked with the sports information directors and we assigned a sport to each school, and I asked them if they could help me find athletes that were willing to be on camera. It was a lot of coordinating. I’m still surprised it worked out as well as it did,” Draayer said.
The video has not only worked to promote the MIAC’s core values, but makes a statement about the MIAC as a Division III conference.
“It puts the conference on the cutting edge. I would bet money that if you looked around DIII conferences across the country, there aren’t going to be many conferences that have a conference-wide video that is promoting its own brand like this one is,” Armstrong said.
Not only does the video publicize the conference, but also, the fact that a MIAC student-athlete was the producer of it gives it even more value, according to Armstrong.
“To see that this is done by an amateur, like Carolyn, one of the MIAC’s athletes, is the sweet part about this whole thing,” Armstrong said.
Draayer is a junior Communication Studies major that just so happens to have a passion for filmmaking. As a captain of the Gustavus women’s hockey team, Draayer represents Gustavus athletics both on and off the ice. Last season, Draayer was awarded the NCAA Division III Elite 89 award, which is presented to one student-athlete in each sport sponsored by the NCAA. During Draayer’s freshman and sophomore years the Gustavus Women’s Hockey team won the MIAC regular season championship and placed fourth in the nation.
Her interest in filmmaking sparked in her early high school years, and has since become a side project among school and hockey.
“I think it’s really fun to have a camera in my hand. I like taking an idea and conceptualizing it, taking steps and watching it come to life,” Draayer said.
Draayer’s teammate, Junior Leah Johnson believes that despite Draayer’s busy schedule, she manages to maintain a positive attitude that attributes to her own personal success and the success of the team.
“She’s a big encourager. She is always encouraging the other teammates, writing notes of encouragement. She’s very vocal out on the ice and on the bench, very positive. Even if she’s having a bad day she’ll always come to the rink with a positive attitude,” Johnson said.
Draayer plans to continue filmmaking, though she is still unsure whether or not she is interested in pursuing it as a career or keeping it as a hobby.
“I’m still trying to decide if it’s the right career for me. I definitely enjoy it. This summer I’m really pursuing a couple different opportunities with companies that I think can show me what this is really like as a job,” Draayer said.
Draayer’s promotional videos are available to watch on the MIAC’s website under the information tab.