Slogan Plays Like a Champion for Family Business

9/30/2004

By Jackie McAdams

(Reprinted with permission from ND Works, September 23, 2004)

Laurie Wenger has one of those work histories that involves fate. In her case, it has pointed its finger in her direction more than once, ultimately making her and her family proprietors of the phrase "Play Like a Champion Today" and the merchandise that carries the slogan.

In the early 1980s, Wenger was working in South Dining Hall when her hand-written menu signs attracted the admiration of the legendary athletic director Edward "Moose" Krause. Krause pointed Wenger toward a sign-painting opening at the Joyce Center . She got it, and started in June 1984.

In 1986, football coach Lou Holtz remembered a phrase on the desk of a friend and former coach, Gerry Faust, that he thought had motivational power. He wanted the phrase "Play Like a Champion Today" placed where all his players could see. Wenger obliged, and painted a large gold sign with dark blue lettering to be hung at the exit of the stairway from the football locker room. Soon, a tradition developed. Before every game, each football player would tap the sign on the way to the field in hopes of gaining a little luck.

Five years and a national championship later, former football player Rudy Ruettiger asked for a copy of the golden sign for himself. "If he wanted one," Wenger thought, "maybe everyone would want their own copy of the sign." Working with her husband, Ron; her brother-in-law Don Padgett , who works for the Office of Information Technologies; and Padgett's wife, Janet, they started a small production business. Conversations with the University cleared the way for them to use the phrase.

For the next two years, the Wengers and the Padgetts produced about 600 hand-made "Play Like a Champion Today" signs. "Laurie was always in the basement working on signs," her husband, Ron, recalls. "[We were so busy that] one year we didn't even get a Christmas tree!"

Over time, the couples incorporated the enterprise as Play Like a Champion Today Inc. and turned the manufacturing and distribution work over to specialty companies. Today, the phrase is seen on various t-shirts, mugs, and towels. Renditions grace the homes and offices of celebrities such as Regis Philbin, Sean Austin, and Ara Parseghian, whose medical research foundation is a favorite charity of the Play Like a Champion Today company.

Padgett says the endeavor has provided spending money, but also some great adventures and some great knockoffs. When Parseghian's group asked for signs for a fund raiser to be autographed by celebrities like the cast of the movie "Rudy," they made sure the Wengers and Padgetts got autographed copies, too. "It's got Lou Holtz's signature, and Sean Astin (who played Rudy). It's really nice," Padgett says.

A few years back, the Athletic Department returned to Wenger for a word play on the "Play Like a." phrase. Prior to football season, everyone from the Athletic Department was to go over to the football stadium to give the bathroom plumbing a heavy-duty workout. (The test helps prevents a level of flooding that occurred one home opener.) "Laurie painted a sign 'Flush Like a Champion.'" Padgett says. The original sign may still be around in the locker room, but some of the "flush" versions walked away, he says.