From many, one. In 2008, the Syracuse Univeristy team posing for this photo was actually made up in large part by 31 "internal teams." This year's SU team will be even larger and be made up in part by increased entrants from internal teams.

'Internal teams' fuel growth for SU's
450-member Corporate Challenge team

A growth spurt at SU
Year	2008	2009
Entrants	363	450
Internal teams	31	44
Members on an internal team	201	347
Members new to Challenge	179	212

SYRACUSE, June 16, 2009 — More often than not, good things don't just happen randomly in business, sports or life. Key people make wise decisions, take action and work to make something good happen.

That's clearly the case at the Syracuse Chase Corporate Challenge, where one of the success stories at the 27th annual running of the event on June 23 at Onondaga Lake Park will be the impressive growth in entries by Syracuse University.

Sure to be the largest team by far at Onondaga Lake Park this year, Syracuse University has charted remarkable growth in the past three years. In 2007, it fielded a team of 167 entrants. Last year, entries grew to 363. This year, Syracuse University will be represented by a team of 450.

Such potentially life-changing growth in promoting fitness in the workplace at Syracuse University did not just happen.

"A few years ago, we wanted to be No. 1 in participation and we put together a brainstorming group to come up with ways to make it happen," said Deborah (Mickey) Lord, Director of WorkLife & Organizational Development in the Human Resources Department at the university. "Every barrier that we could take away, that's what we did."

Led by Lord, Company Captain Katherine Bloomer-Calabria and others, SU began by using an email campaign and news blasts to reach out to employees scattered over many departments and schools, encouraging them to participate in the Corporate Challenge.

Brainstorming sessions at Syracuse University on how to encourage participation have resulted in large teams that offer entrants a diverse range of fitness and social opportunities at the Corporate Challenge.

"We found that many of our employees thought the Corporate Challenge was only for runners," said Lord. "When we explained that walking the Corporate Challenge is fine, too, that barrier came down. Now, we get a lot of people who walk and for whom this is the only event of its kind they enter during the year."

In fact, in 2008, SU attracted 179 entrants who were new to the Corporate Challenge. This year, that figure is up to 212 first-time entrants - 47 percent of the largest team that will be participating at Syracuse.

However, the real key to the sustained, impressive growth in Corporate Challenge entries at SU is no doubt linked to a novel concept the brainstorming group decided to use. It's called "internal teams," and it is basically having a lot of small teams come together under the umbrella of the large SU squad.

"We have put an emphasis on internal teams - with departments, schools, and colleagues being able to create teams that employees could join during the registration process on our Human Resources web site," said Lord. " It becomes fun for them, and competitive. They do this themselves and come up with their own names. Some work out together, and enjoy the social aspect (of being on an internal team)."

And, then, come race day on June 23, they all come together at Onondaga Lake Park under the SU banner. The "Reading Runners" (from the library) compete with, and against, the Spin Doctors (from News Services) and literally dozens of other internal teams from SU. In 2008, SU had 31 internal teams with a total of 201 participants. This year, those numbers have jumped to 44 teams and 374 participants.

What began as an idea in a brainstorming session has become a success story, written with the help of a lot of SU employees dedicated to being part of a fitness-related, social team with their colleagues.

"Internal teams," said Lord,, "are really cool."

Neal Coffey, SU's top runner in 2008, says, "We support and encourage each other, no matter what level of running or fitness we're at."

The big SU teams also have yielded some impressive results. In 2008, SU's female team finished fifth and its mixed team was fourth, anchored by Neal Coffey, the fastest SU runner in 2008 with a time of 20:59.

“The Corporate Challenge is a wonderful community event that allows me to represent my employer proudly," said Coffey. "We have some fantastic runners on the faculty and staff at Syracuse University, and I enjoy training and preparing for the race with them each year. We support and encourage each other, no matter what level of running or fitness we're at.

"I appreciate the spirit of the whole SU team," Coffey added. "It is so cool during the race after the turnaround to see and hear so many SU participants cheering the competitive runners on. It really is an adrenaline rush and makes me want to run faster so we can have a winning team. It's not an easy event and anyone that finishes is a winner. The party afterwards is always a great opportunity to reconnect with friends and coworkers that I haven't seen in a while. It's a blast!”

Added Bloomer-Calabria after last year's Corporate Challenge — when the team had everyone from the chancellor to administrative specialists participating: "We're really proud of this."