By Brittany Burke

Usually blue is associated with the feeling of being sad or down, and usually workers (and students) are faced with the Monday morning blues each week, but not in the Central Connecticut State University athletics department.

In the CCSU athletics department, where the colors are blue and white and the school is represented by Kizer, the Blue Devil, the color is celebrated and embraced, especially on Fridays.

When Paul Schlickmann took over as athletics director last year, he made it clear that everything done by the athletics department would be done to promote Blue Devils pride. One of the things he did to heighten the pride around the department was implement something he likes to call “Go Blue Fridays.”

“In the department that’s our rule,” said Schlickmann. “Every Friday is blue Fridays. So we’re pretty formal dressed during the week, but on Fridays it’s business casual, but you have to wear blue. I think it’s great for a number of reasons. I think it automatically reminds people once a week of who we are, that we are Central Connecticut. We are the blue devils and it’s just a weekly avenue to have a sense of spirit, to have a sense of pride and identity and who we are and who we represent.”

Every Friday throughout the school year the entire athletics department staff and the CCSU student athletes are required to wear blue as a way of supporting the university. It is a program that began last year and continues in 2011 as a way to incorporate one of the 11 core principles of the department.

“We actually have 11 core operating principles and one of them is spirit, pride and identity and this is one of our core strings of that, to make sure that our student athletes and our staff show that,” said Schlickmann. “Certainly it’s critical for us to show that because we’re the ones and our student athletes in particular representing this… school in competition, but I think it’s great and important for the campus to have [something like this].

“So I see [wearing blue on Fridays] as our opportunity, part of our responsibility, to try and galvanize that, enhance that, and spread that sense of spirit pride and identity not only about Blue Devil athletics, but about the institution and the campus and what it means to be a student here what it means to have pride in your institution … you don’t have to be a student athlete to be a Blue Devil. Everybody is a Blue Devil here, we’re all Blue Devils. I just hope it’s something that can catch on on campus. It’s a fun way to show your spirit and your pride for the institution that you work at that you go to that you represent that you play for, all those things.”

“Go Blue Fridays” is something that Schlickmann saw catch on and extend beyond his staff to the faculty around the CCSU campus, and he hopes it is something that could catch on with the entire student body.

After the Blue Devils’ football season opener, Schlickmann was proud when he saw the majority of the student section filled with students wearing blue t-shirts.

For the past two years the incoming freshmen classes have been given blue t-shirts welcoming them to CCSU and hopefully instilling Blue Devil pride early in their college careers.

In providing students with the t-shirts, Schlickmann hopes they will wear them proudly, even if it’s not on a Friday.