What is a Chanticleer? Telling the university story when the nation is watching

The Coastal Carolina University (CCU) Office of Communications and Marketing was just as shocked as the nation watching its baseball team make a historic championship run at the 2016 College World Series. For us, the excitement turned into hours of preparing content and engaging with a national audience, many of whom did not even know where CCU was located, let alone anything about our midsized, comprehensive liberal arts university. This was the first time the Chanticleers had even made it to the tournament in Omaha, and anticipating what was to come from the win was unfamiliar territory, even for our seasoned communications and marketing team. This paper presents our lessons learned and the impact the College World Series, and ultimately the NCAA National Championship, had on the CCU brand, social media reach and engagement, community support, licensing, enrolment and website traffic. As a team, we will all be better prepared for the national spotlight after experiencing the 2016 College World Series win first-hand. After reading this paper, our hope, regardless of the institution size, is that one can be better prepared or implement a tactic or two to be as prepared as possible for their underdog team to propel their university into the national spotlight.