The Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) hosted a light-hearted, online contest to fill the sports fans’ empty hearts after all spring sports seasons were canceled due to the coronavirus. On March 31, the AAC announced, through its website and on Twitter, the launch of “AAC Logo Madness.”
In a random draw, all 16 schools in the conference were entered and paired with one another in a single-elimination bracket. Each round lasted 24 hours, and all voting was conducted via AAC Twitter Polls each day.
“There was no way I was voting for any logo that went against Milligan,” said Tim Thacker, Junior Cross-Country runner for Milligan. “I voted for Milligan the whole way, but in the first round I voted against our biggest rivals in the conference in hopes they wouldn’t go far.”
The bracket moved into the quarterfinals after a “very active and exciting” first round, said AAC. A total of 8,973 votes were cast in the first round, and The Milligan Buffaloes proved themselves against the St. Andrews Knights, as they won the vote against the Knights. The success put the Buffs up against the Montreat Cavaliers for the semi-finals.
Pressure mounted as the semi-final contestants collected votes on April 2. Milligan won by a much closer call against the Cavs with a 55%-45% vote, but this round attracted a smaller crowd with a total of 3,905 votes.
The semi-final results paired the Buffaloes with the Union Bulldogs and the Reinhardt Eagles with the Tennessee Wesleyan Bulldogs for the final four. The four contestants had very close calls in the Twitter polls with the Eagles winning by less than one percent, and the Buffs beat the Union Bulldogs by only two percent.
In the final round, Milligan and Reinhardt went head-to-head awaiting their concluding tally on Twitter. Finally, the results came in Saturday and while the Eagles attracted a 49.8% vote, the Buffs ultimately won the tournament with a 50.2% majority. Throughout the tournament, a total of 19,234 votes were cast to decide the winner.
Milligan junior and cross-country athlete, Drew Burton, was one of the voters for his home team in the final two rounds.
“Both Union and Reinhardt are rivals for us in athletics, so I think there was definitely a competitive reason for voting for Milligan,” Burton said. “But I did think our logo was better than theirs, and that, combined with school spirit and wanting our school to be represented, .”
When asked his opinion on the idea of the event Burton expressed his appreciation for it. “I liked having that going on,” he said. “So many things are going around on social media and having a spark of school spirit in the middle of this was super fun. I think it provided an opportunity for our school to unite on something and experience just a little bit of what we enjoy during sports.”
The AAC thanked all of the participants for their creativity and cooperation in the process of the tournament, “making it a smashing success.”
Headline photo: The elimination bracket for the competition. All 16 members of the AAC began in their pairs and racked up votes as the rounds went on in the competition for best school logo.