Winter 2005 Featured Story

It's Back!

The long-defunct "M" Club returns to Mankato, bringing with it a new sense of pride and identity for current students and alumni alike.

by Sara Gilbert

Shortly after Kevin Buisman came to Mankato as Minnesota State University's director of athletics in the summer of 2002, he attended his first Maverick football game. But as he made himself comfortable in Blakeslee Stadium, he was nagged by the feeling that something was missing.

At first, he thought it was just the band. As a former football player and associate director of sports management at Northern Iowa University in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Buisman had grown accustomed to the spirited sound of horns and drums at athletic events. But there was something else missing as well he realized as he scanned the crowd of students in the stands.

"Nobody was wearing a letter jacket," he remembers. "I was so surprised by that. I knew that there would be a few adjustments going from a Division I school like Northern Iowa to a Division II school like MSU, but that really surprised me."

The problem, he soon found out, was that he had arrived on campus almost three decades too late. Until midway through the 1970s, letter jackets were a common sight on campus. The woolen coats, decorated with a carefully stitched-on chenille M, were a symbol of achievement and a source of pride for the athletes who wore them. They were present at every athletic event, from football games to basketball contests to track meets.

"It was a tradition," says Duane Mettler, a 1956 physical education graduate who participated in both basketball and track at MSU.He earned his M his freshman year. The next year, he received a sweater. As a junior, he was awarded the jacket that he proudly wore for the rest of his college career. "When you wore your letter jacket, you had a tradition to uphold. There was a certain amount of pride that went along with it. You always knew that you were representing the University."

That deep sense of pride in both team and institution was part of what Buisman missed when he scanned the crowd at Blakeslee Stadium that fall afternoon two years ago. And it was exactly what he decided to bring back to the University by resurrecting the long-defunct "M" Club, a fraternal organization for athletes, and the letterwinner award program for current student athletes.

"I felt like this represented a standard of excellence that we wanted to emulate," says Buisman, who researched the practice at other Division II schools and found that the upper echelon of those universities did have letterwinner programs. "It seemed like this could really distinguish us and set us apart. This is a component that I felt we needed to bring back to our program."

The original "M" Club was born in the late 1920s and early 1930s as a way to recognize student athletes on campus. With money raised from candy sales and concession stands, the Club funded awards presented to athletes by the coaches. By the 1950s, those had become the standardized "letterwinner" awards: a chenille M for first-year qualifiers, a sweater in the second year, a jacket in the third and a blanket in the fourth.

"It was a different era," remembers Jerry Bodelson, who played football and basketball at MSU before graduating in 1958. "Being a letterwinner was very important then. To wear that sweater and eventually that jacket was very important."

Equally important was the sense of community that the "M" Club forged among student athletes. "There was a sense of camaraderie," Mettler remembers. "All of the athletes were consolidated into one unit. We were all together."

They raised money by working together at the concession stands at various athletic events, each team supporting the other teams as a group. Football players worked at the basketball games and vice versa. "We had to work for it," Mettler says. "We took tickets, handed out programs, sold popcorn, ran the scoreboard, whatever. You were called upon to be part of it. It was an expectation."

So was a certain level of academic success. To earn a letter, athletes not only had to score a certain number of points, play a certain number of minutes or win a certain number of events, they also had to maintain a certain grade point average. Such standards kept them honest, says former shot-putter and discus-thrower Kim Beisser, who graduated in 1973. "That's what got my academics turned around," Beisser says. "I had to keep my GPA up. That was just as important as the points I scored on the track."

That was also part of the pride that athletes felt wearing their jackets around campus and around town. They knew exactly what it said about them, and they took that seriously. "It was a form of identification," says Beisser. "It was a bonding agent for athletes, regardless of the sport. It was a representation of the effort you put in at every level."

It was likewise a representation of the University, which was also taken seriously. "There were definitely certain places you didn't wear your jacket," Mettler admits. "You were representing the University. There were certain things you couldn't do."

But then, sometime in the mid-1970s, the "M" Club and letterwinner program disappeared. No one can say for sure why. Perhaps it was the introduction of women's athletics to the University and the strain those additional teams put on the budget. Perhaps it was a sign of the times, a reaction to the turbulence of the 1960s and the anger of the Vietnam era. Whatever the reason, the "M" Club gradually dissipated and disappeared. The letterwinner program struggled to stay afloat without the funds provided from the efforts of the "M" Club and it, too, dissolved.

Along the way, the once-proud letter jackets slowly disappeared from campus. And as they did, the once-distinguished athletes slowly melted into the crowd.

But back in Grimes, Iowa, a well-worn old M jacket was still hanging proudly in Kim Beisser's closet. House after house, move after move, the jacket followed him. Even as boxes full of memories were downsized and eventually eliminated, the jacket remained. "It was the thing I could hang my hat on, the connection I had with college," Beisser says. "It was always a source of pride for me."

When Buisman asked Beisser to speak at an athletic department function in 2002, it became his source of inspiration as well.

"Kim told me that he was having a hard time thinking of what to say," Buisman reports. "He paced his house and eventually went to his closet, because he knew the right memories would be there. He said he put on his letter jacket and it was like magic. Suddenly, it was easy for him to sit down and write.

"That's a great story," Buisman adds. "We want everybody to have one of those stories."

Soon, they will.With Beisser's help, MSU's athletic department was able to relaunch both the "M" Club and the letterwinner award program this year. Although they look a little different than they did 30 years ago (the "M" Club is now exclusively for athletic alumni, while the letterwinner award program caters to current students), the goals are much the same: to recognize both the academic and athletic achievements of student athletes, to create a sense of community and a bond between current and former athletes, and to offer an identifiable connection to their alma mater.

"It's so important to have that tangible connection," Buisman says. "We've heard a lot about a lack of connection to the program, about students who walk away feeling disillusioned, like they have nothing to show for their time here. So we really felt that this could be an investment in these students."

But first, Buisman is counting on former athletes making an investment in the University. Although a generous donation from Beisser will fund the first year of the letterwinner program, future years will be dependent on membership dues from the "M" Club. "The "M" Club will be a vehicle for our athletic alumni to come together as a community and to give them a sense of connection to their past, but it will also be a primary means of funding the letterwinner award program," Buisman explains. "It will cost about $20,000 a year to support the award program."

Buisman says he's gotten a "pretty good" response from the alumni he's talked to so far. "Most of our former athletes feel that it is important to bring this back," he says. "There may be some who are upset that we didn't have this when they were here, but most recognize that it is meaningful."

The goal is to eventually have as many as 500 alumni in the "M" Club; by late fall 2004, the membership rolls were up to about 50, according to Brian Gabel, interim director of marketing and promotions for MSU Athletics. "That's a good number for us so far," says Gabel, who orchestrated an informational mailing to all 4,800 athletic alumni he could find last summer. "It's not necessarily going to happen right away. It's going to take four or five years for it to get off the ground and grow, for the athletes to realize how valuable it is."

In the meantime, letter jackets will slowly start showing up on campus again. Buisman hopes that they'll be accompanied by a new sense of pride and identity for a new breed of student athletes. Things have changed substantially in the past three decades, and the new program will have to embrace those changes.

Today, MSU has a total of 23 team sports, including two Division II hockey teams. Thanks to the University's efforts to comply with Title IX regulations, half of those teams are fielded by female athletes, who weren't part of the original membership. Those women will now be welcomed into both the "M" Club and the letterwinner award program.

As the program develops, so will a sense of community among the student population. "Our student athletes are generally reserved and unassuming," he says. "You wouldn't necessarily know that the person sitting next to you in class is an athlete. This program will help create some visibility for those athletes and will carry on that connection to the University."

It may also raise the bar for their behavior, both in and out of the classroom. Academic performance will be an important criteria in earning a letter, Buisman reports, and the increased visibility of the letterwinners will hold student athletes to a higher standard. "There will be more responsibility and accountability now," Buisman says. "Hopefully, there will be some unwritten rules of conduct that go along with it — you don't make a fool of yourself or bring embarrassment to the program. You have to respect the award and what it means to be a Maverick letterwinner."

Beisser is hopeful that today's athletes will take their responsibility seriously. He hopes that they will know when to wear their letter jackets and when to leave them at home. "They need to be aware of where they are and what the public vision of them is," he says. "When you're wearing that jacket, wherever you are, you're representing the University."

That's still a very real concern for Beisser himself, who was recently given a new letter jacket in recognition of his efforts to bring the "M" Club and letterwinner program back to campus. He remains very aware of what that jacket means and what it says. And he remains committed to the University that gave him all that. He's contributed regularly to MSU in general as well as the athletic department. "I focused on that because it was such an important part of my time there," he says.

Not every alumna or alumnus will be able to commit to MSU the way Beisser, who owns Beisser Lumber Company in Grimes, Iowa, has. But one of the goals of these new initiatives, Buisman readily admits, is to develop a stronger base of support for the University and its athletic department.

"Student athletes are notorious as the worst group of givers," Buisman says. "There are any number of reasons for that, and one may be that they don't leave here with any strong connection to the University. We hope that we can change that."

The annual letterwinner awards are a start. In their first year, student athletes can earn a chevron; the second year, they get a letter jacket, followed by a watch their third year and a ring their fourth year. For a qualifying four-year athlete, that's more than $300 worth of awards that follow them wherever they go. And whether they're stuffed in a box or hanging in a closet, they're tangible reminders of an important place and time.

"We hope that if they come here and take all those awards, that we'll get at least that much back from them sometime in the future," Buisman says. "And maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get many times that in return."

For more information on the "M" Club, visit the MSU Mavericks "M" Club website.

Sara Gilbert is a Mankato-based writer and editor, and a regular contributor to TODAY.