How athletes are marketing themselves off the field!!

Today I wanna talk about a Former Baltimore Oriole Chris Hoiles. Chris played on the Orioles as a catcher, from 1989-1999. He was the team MVP in 1993, and was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame in 2006. http://www.goldgloveacademy.net/?page_id=483/#Hoiles

 Even though he isn't directly on the Orioles ball field, he is still very involved in sports. Chris keeps his legacy going in many ways. He is the Owner of Gold Glove Sports Academy and now teaches young adults how to accomplish and follow through with their dream of being an athlete! Chris's hard work & dedication has helped lead them into College Baseball as well as the minor leagues. At the Gold Glove Sports Academy they hold different events, sports camps, clinics for the kids. Not only does this keep the kids stay off the street but he teaches them the discipline to make their life successful.


Off the field Chris does some advertising with "Show your Soft Side" an organization that does exactly that, shows your soft side with your pet. This organization has been put on billboards all over Baltimore. It is a campaign that was started by the rising number of animal abuse.

                        Chris contributes to many organizations such as the York Cancer Center

Chris's wife Dana started her own jewelry business a few years back called "Sports Jewelry by Dana Hoiles" as well as their Brand New Wine label of  "LOVE THE GAME."Dana designed the shirt below and with every purchase all of the proceeds go directly to the March of Dimes!

Chris and Dana travel all over and give autographs out with each piece of jewelry, hat, shirt and yes on those beautiful bottles of wine! Not only are they wonderful people but they are constantly giving back to the communities.

http://www.danahoiles.com

Chris Hoiles still attends the Oriole Fest, does radio interviews and so much more! You know how they say "There is no I in Team" well Chris and Dana work as a team, they go above and beyond on everything they do! I was very fortunate to meet both of them when we attended a few mutual events. I can only tell you what I know. They are a very loving couple who pays it forward to anyone that they can reach out to! Many fans look up to Chris, as he is a great role model for everyone.
 

Keep up the GREAT work Chris & Dana your an inspiration to many of us out there!! I have included the websites of both the Gold Glove Sports Academy & Sports Jewelry by Dana Hoiles so check them out!


The images posted above are pictures that I am using are directly from their Facebook pages.

Susan Compton

YouTube killed the video star...

As I reminisce about the music industry it brings back some really cool memories on how we could call or write to the radio stations for a song request.  Every Sunday we could always count on Casey Kasem, to let us know what song made it to the Top 40 and to think that all of that is gone. Down to a tiny device that you can carry inside of your pocket. I honestly do not even own an iPod or mp3 player nor do I download songs from the computer.  I do believe that the music industry as we once knew it is long gone.

My First Album

I can remember the day that MTV first came on and watching the same videos play over and over. Every day they would play a new song every hour on the hour and this is just one of many ways that the music industry survived. Music Videos were so BIG back in the 80's that we use to even have dances at school, where they would pull the screen down and we would dance to the entire Thriller Album and so much more. Wow, what memories this brings back!

I do however miss the albums and cassettes but do like the fact that Cd's saved a lot of room, expense and are much more clear on the sound. I wish they still had the old hangouts such as the Record Bar or Record & Tape Traders, they were the BEST!!!
We would spend hours in there searching and comparing albums to see how we could get the most songs for the money and if you were lucky you would find the bands Greatest Hits. Nowadays, you can buy individual songs which takes away from the artists. They work very hard and put a lot of passion into what they do and for that to be taken from them hurts the musicians wallets.

As we look at the whole picture, I do hope that albums come back, you know you wanna get up and exercise when that album skips or keep those pencils handy as we need to wind up the cassette tape when it gets caught in the reel track and we would take hours to make our tapes work properly again. They were the fun days right?? Not only has this taken the music industry down in my opinion but listen to the albums promoted "Quality" family time.  Now that we have Ipod's/MP3 players this sure doesn't help with our anti-social world that we have become. Communication has been taken over by social media but has placed us into a lifestyle of just being lazy! I know they recently came out with speakers to hook up to the iPods but at first it just allowed you to listen alone. 

The music industry still does make videos but you need to watch them on YouTube, everything is electronic. YouTube has it set up where if you like the person that is posting the videos you can subscribe to however, that person is not always the musician themselves. So this means your downloading the music for free. Then you can share it all over the social media pages and it gets out there one way or another. I always wonder to myself what will happen if all the computer systems in the world crash, everything will be long gone. The bands today really do need to depend on the radio stations to help promote their EP's as well as use sites such as www.reverbnation.com to promote their own music instead of using a record label company. But ultimately they have to work harder with touring and make their show so out of this world that the word of mouth travels and make it something you just cant miss!

Bottom line is " I LOVE ROCK & ROLL" all aspects of music and I feel its slowly withering away. So next time your out at the club, make sure to go by and thank the DJ's for continuing to honor the musicians!

Susan Compton