When Vanderbilt University hosts Georgia for its football season-opener Aug. 31, a special guest will be in the house to help “Set the Expectation.”
Sexual violence prevention advocate Brenda Tracy will be honored at halftime as part of the Commodores’ first “Set the Expectation” game.
Tracy, a survivor of sexual assault, a member of the NCAA Commission to Combat Campus Sexual Violence and the founder of the Set the Expectation campaign, has spoken to dozens of college football programs and high school teams in order to bring awareness of these issues to student-athletes.
In addition to recognizing Tracy on the field, awareness efforts will include teal and purple patches and helmet stickers worn by players and football staff — teal representing sexual violence awareness, and purple representing relationship violence awareness. The field will be painted with a teal and purple ribbon, as well.
“Set The Expectation” T-shirts will be distributed to the first 10,000 fans in attendance, and student-athletes from both teams will wear the shirts during warmups.
Finally, Vanderbilt will host a donation drive that will benefit the Tennessee Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence and will collect donations for victims of domestic violence. The university’s Project Safe organization will be on-site to deliver information about on-campus resources, as well.
Vanderbilt will be the first SEC program to host a “Set the Expectation” game.