On the day WMUC Sports launched its first live 24-hour marathon in more than a half-century, Liam Beatus happened to run into Scott Van Pelt at a college basketball game.
Van Pelt is perhaps the most prominent and enthusiastic Maryland grad in sports media today. Beatus is the incoming co-station director at WMUC Sports, a student-run, internet-only station that covers all the school’s sports teams, puts on sports talk shows, and has helped launch scores of sports media careers. They were both at Maryland’s Big Ten quarterfinal game against Northwestern last month, and Beatus figured he might as well mention the fundraising drive.
“I mean, I don’t like asking people for money on location,” Beatus said. “I’ve talked to him a few times, and we’re cool, and I don’t want it to be like that. But I mentioned it to him, and he was like okay, let me know.”
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Well, the station’s five-week fundraising drive was set to end this week. Organizers were still more than $1,000 short of their $8,000 goal, which would be enough to cover two years of travel costs. So Beatus sent a tweet to Van Pelt — who is on the Board of Visitors of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism explaining the the situation.
“What do you need to be fully funded?” asked Van Pelt,
“We are $1,255 short of our original goal, but any donation you make is appreciated,” Beatus answered.
“I got you,” Van Pelt wrote back. “Playing golf now. Will cover this later. You’re funded.”
“And at that point I called the current station director frantically, like ‘How do I respond to this?’ ” Beatus told me. “And then it kind of spiraled into what it has become.”
On Thursday night, Beatus — who’s also interning with CSN — talked to Van Pelt on the phone while at the Caps game, in order to coordinate the donation. But by that point, their interaction had already become a “Moment” on Twitter, which meant that thousands of people were reading about WMUC’s appeal to Van Pelt, and about his response.
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They were, as it turned out, learning a slightly misleading version of the story. “Scott Van Pelt rescues his alma mater’s sports radio station with casual donation,” was the Twitter Moment headline, although WMUC didn’t really need rescuing. The station had been in some budgetary trouble two years ago, until a fundraising campaign raised $15,000, allowing it to cover football, men’s basketball and occasionally women’s basketball games on the road. WMUC Sports spent about $4,000 on travel in each of the last two years, so station leaders wanted to launch another fundraiser this spring, to replenish the funds they’d used and possibly to expand their road operation to women’s basketball, soccer and lacrosse.
Their tactics included that 24-hour marathon; two hours of the marathon were spent broadcasting live from Bentley’s, after station officials assured the College Park watering hole that Van Pelt could vouch for them.
“If Scott’s a big fan of yours, then we are too,” they were told, and the bar donated $500 to the cause and let the station use its facility.
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And so the station got more than halfway to its $8,000 goal almost immediately, but then the effort stalled.
“We knew it was a little bit of a lofty goal, but that was the benchmark we had set,” Beatus said. “And after doing so well the first week, we were really hoping that we’d break through.”
With the deadline approaching, it looked like they would come up short. Then came Van Pelt’s pledge, which led to others, and as I type the station is about $300 over its goal. That’s two years of travel money, anyhow, and one successful fundraising effort.
“It’s not too complicated,” Van Pelt wrote, by way of explanation. “They’re the next wave of Terps. They’re far more motivated than I was at the same age. I never worked for WMUC, but I have gotten to know many of them through the Merrill College. I admire their passion. Ours is a business of good luck as much as anything. If some funding helps to improve the odds of them getting lucky, I am happy to help.”
SVP already said he'd cover the rest of the budget gap, but I gave y'all a little extra! Enjoy, @WMUCSports. Sending hugs to all of you.
— Mia Simon (@miasimon_says) April 13, 2017ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9Jom5xlo6W8s8DSZpmon1%2BsvXB%2Bj2puaGhkZH51e8yaqbKkkaOxtHnSraydnZ6perS8zqurrGWilrGqu4ysq5qsmaS7brrEnpuenF2pvG6%2BwKKqnmWdpL%2BmecyopZ6xXZq7tbHRZqqcp6SperetzWannqSkZA%3D%3D