Through the efforts of five students from Wichita State's Elliott School of Communication, 16 Special Olympics athletes got the experience of a lifetime during the WSU vs. Missouri State men’s basketball game Feb. 18.

Halfway through the Shockers’ 99-68 rout of MSU, the Air Capital Flyers – a local multi-sport program for individuals with disabilities – held a Halftime Shootout in front of thousands at Charles Koch Arena.

It was only five minutes, but it was a memorable opportunity for a group of athletes who just want a chance to play.

And it wouldn’t have happened without the work of ESC students Kate Steele, Sam Hittle, Max Runyon, Taylor Thomas and Caicy Messick.

It started in Madeline McCullough’s Integrated Marketing Communication class. Each semester McCullough picks a local business or nonprofit for her class to research create an integrated marketing campaign for and then present as a final project to the class and the “client.”

McCullough says it’s a chance for students to dip their toes into the real world of marketing, but she never expects anything substantial to come out of the campaigns, other than perhaps a few marketing ideas.

Becoming a reality

When the AC Flyers were chosen in the fall 2015 semester, one of the six small groups in the class decided to take it to the next level and see if – instead of creating a pretend marketing campaign for a class grade – they could find a way to make their idea come to life and get the Air Capital Flyers some real time in front of 10,000 Shocker fans.

“I liked the halftime idea the group came up with, but didn’t think it would actually be plausible,” McCullough says.

But the students did, and they kept working until they found a way to make it happen. They worked with officials in WSU Athletics, as well as Sheri Jans in Shocker Sports Properties. WSU Athletics agreed to donate the court time and Ashley Furniture Homestore donated its designated promotion time and offered to match all funds up to $1,000 on the group’s GoFundMe account.

McCullough then worked with WSU’s Career Development Center to provide Messick — one of her former students and now a senior — with a communication internship to help finish the project and continue working with the Flyers.

“These five students have done this thing, and it’s been magical watching what I thought was an impossible idea become a reality for them,” McCullough says.

Steele says up to this point, her communication classes had been theories, best practices and studying other campaigns for key concepts. Experiential learning is a large part of the Elliott School’s emphasis, and though students are encouraged to complete internships, Steele says, not everyone is able to.

“In our other coursework, we don’t often get to meet with industry professionals and create a tangible product for our portfolios with those professionals,” she says. “Being able to create an actual promotional event really showed us what challenges and opportunities are in the working world for us.”

Steele says helping for such a good cause has been profoundly fulfilling and has given her more focus as she looks toward her future career.

“It has stoked a passion for event planning I hope to be able to foster at WSU,” she says.