THE PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE HOMECOMING Before the Artists, Hosts and Celebrity Announcements, Meet the Student Leaders, Campus Creators, Athletes, DJs, Entrepreneurs and Alumni Who Actually Mov

THE PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE HOMECOMING

Before the Artists, Hosts and Celebrity Announcements, Meet the Student Leaders, Campus Creators, Athletes, DJs, Entrepreneurs and Alumni Who Actually Move College Culture

CRUSH MAGAZINE™ | CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ | FALL 2026

Everybody wants to know who’s performing.

Fair question.

Who’s hosting?

Who’s coming?

Who’s the celebrity?

Who’s the biggest name on the flyer?

Those questions will always be part of entertainment.

But CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ is interested in another question first:

WHO ALREADY MATTERS HERE?

Before the celebrity lands.

Before the tour bus arrives.

Before somebody posts from backstage.

Before the Homecoming afterparty.

There are already people working every day to shape campus culture.

Student leaders.

Athletes.

DJs.

Photographers.

Designers.

Musicians.

Promoters.

Entrepreneurs.

Content creators.

Band members.

Greek leaders.

Alumni.

Faculty.

Local business owners.

People whose names may never trend nationally—

but whose influence is undeniable where they are.

Those are:

THE PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE HOMECOMING.

START WITH STUDENT LEADERSHIP

Every campus has people whose job is to listen.

Student government.

Class officers.

Campus organizations.

Programming boards.

Student media.

Residence leadership.

Organization presidents.

These students occupy an unusual position.

They’re students themselves—

but they’re also learning how institutions work.

Budgets.

Meetings.

Negotiation.

Administration.

Programming.

Advocacy.

Communication.

Leadership.

That’s real experience.

CRUSH Magazine™ should document it.

THE SGA PRESIDENT ISN’T JUST A NAME ON A WEBSITE

Think about what student-government leadership can require.

Representing thousands of students.

Meeting administrators.

Responding to concerns.

Navigating disagreements.

Supporting programming.

Communicating with constituencies.

Making decisions publicly.

Learning what happens when everybody doesn’t agree with you.

That’s leadership training in real time.

Some of these students will eventually run companies.

Some will practice law.

Some will enter government.

Some will build nonprofits.

Some will become educators.

Some will create businesses nobody has imagined yet.

Why wait until they’re forty to interview them?

GEORGIA STATE HAS LEADERS NOW

Not someday.

Now.

Students are organizing.

Building.

Creating.

Competing.

Launching businesses.

Working internships.

Making music.

Running organizations.

Building audiences.

Homecoming gives the broader public a reason to look at campus.

CRUSH Magazine™ should use some of that attention to ask:

Who should we know before everybody else does?

UGA HAS LEADERS NOW

Football will receive enormous attention.

It should.

But thousands of students aren’t wearing helmets.

They’re building things too.

Companies.

Organizations.

Research.

Art.

Music.

Media.

Community initiatives.

Homecoming coverage can celebrate football without allowing football to become the only story.

THE AUC MAY HAVE ONE OF THE DEEPEST TALENT POOLS IN AMERICA

Morehouse.

Spelman.

Clark Atlanta.

Think about the combined network.

Business.

STEM.

Media.

Politics.

Arts.

Entertainment.

Medicine.

Law.

Education.

Entrepreneurship.

Activism.

The AUC isn’t merely producing graduates.

It’s producing future institutions.

Some of them may currently be operating from dorm rooms.

FIND THE FOUNDER BEFORE THE FUNDING ROUND

That’s the fun part.

Anybody can profile somebody after success becomes obvious.

What about before?

The student with fifty customers.

The designer making shirts from a dorm.

The photographer shooting every campus event.

The producer building beats after class.

The student developing an app.

The young woman selling beauty products between lectures.

The promoter learning customer acquisition by selling tickets.

Those stories matter now.

ALBANY STATE HAS PEOPLE THE REST OF GEORGIA SHOULD KNOW

This is why regional coverage matters.

Talent isn’t geographically obligated to move to Atlanta before it becomes worthy of attention.

Albany.

South Georgia.

Albany State.

There are students building things there too.

CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ should find them.

Put them in the same media ecosystem as Atlanta creators.

That’s what statewide cultural media can do.

SAVANNAH STATE HAS PEOPLE THE COUNTRY SHOULD KNOW

Savannah already attracts global tourism.

But how many visitors know the student entrepreneur ten minutes away?

The athlete?

The artist?

The photographer?

The student leader?

The band member?

The designer?

The creator?

That’s the gap.

Homecoming creates attention.

Media can redirect some of that attention toward people building their futures.

GEORGIA SOUTHERN HAS PEOPLE WE HAVEN’T MET YET

Statesboro shouldn’t be treated like the last stop because it matters least.

It’s the finale because of the calendar.

Different thing.

There are students there creating culture right now.

Find them.

That’s the assignment.

THE DJ DESERVES A PROFILE

Before the famous artist.

Interview the DJ.

How did they start?

What equipment did they buy first?

What record changed everything?

What song is currently destroying the campus?

How much does a college DJ actually earn?

How do they build relationships?

How do they read a room?

What’s next?

Now nightlife becomes a business story.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER DESERVES A PROFILE

Look at the pictures that define campus culture online.

Somebody took them.

Maybe a student.

Maybe a recent graduate.

Maybe somebody who started with one camera and no clients.

Photography can become:

Creative work.

Media.

Marketing.

Entrepreneurship.

History.

The person shooting Homecoming in 2026 may unknowingly be creating photographs people will look at in 2046.

That’s worth documenting.

THE GRAPHIC DESIGNER DESERVES A PROFILE

Before the party—

the flyer.

Before the clothing brand—

the logo.

Before the organization announcement—

the graphic.

Designers quietly shape how campus culture looks.

Find them.

Ask what they’re building.

THE VIDEOGRAPHER DESERVES A PROFILE

One recap can travel farther than the event itself.

The person behind the camera understands something valuable:

Attention can be edited.

Music.

Timing.

Movement.

Emotion.

Story.

A two-minute video can make somebody hundreds of miles away say:

“I’m going next year.”

That’s economic power disguised as content.

THE BAND MEMBER DESERVES A PROFILE

Especially in HBCU culture.

People see the halftime performance.

They don’t always see:

Practice.

Discipline.

Travel.

Schoolwork.

Physical exhaustion.

Musical preparation.

Tradition.

Competition.

The band is part performance and part institution.

Tell those stories.

THE ATHLETE DESERVES MORE THAN A STAT LINE

How are they handling school?

What are they studying?

What business do they want to build?

How are they navigating NIL?

Who raised them?

What does Homecoming mean when you’re actually playing in the game?

What’s life after sports?

Athletes are people before they’re content.

Treat them accordingly.

THE STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON TO WATCH

Because ownership changes everything.

A student who learns how to generate one dollar independently learns something powerful.

Then ten dollars.

Then one hundred.

Then one thousand.

The numbers can grow.

But the psychological shift happens early:

I can create value somebody will pay for.

That’s entrepreneurship.

Homecoming creates enormous temporary demand.

Students should participate in that economy.

THE LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER MATTERS TOO

Some businesses have survived twenty Homecomings.

Think about what they know.

Customer behavior.

Alumni patterns.

Traffic.

Pricing.

Staffing.

The city.

The school.

They carry institutional knowledge outside the institution.

Interview them.

THE ALUMNUS WHO CAME BACK AND BUILT SOMETHING MATTERS

Everybody loves celebrity alumni.

But success has more than one definition.

What about the graduate who returned and opened a restaurant?

The teacher?

The coach?

The attorney?

The small-business owner?

The nonprofit founder?

The physician serving the community?

The alumnus employing current students?

Those stories create attainable models.

THE PROMOTER IS AN ENTREPRENEUR TOO

When done professionally.

Customer acquisition.

Pricing.

Advertising.

Negotiation.

Vendor management.

Venue relations.

Cash flow.

Talent buying.

Production.

Risk.

Hospitality.

That’s business.

The nightlife setting doesn’t erase the underlying skills.

Some of America’s largest entertainment executives started by figuring out how to get people into rooms.

BUT INFLUENCE SHOULD BE MEASURED CORRECTLY

Followers matter.

But they aren’t everything.

Ask:

Can they move people?

Do people trust them?

Do they create original work?

Do they support others?

Are they consistent?

Are they professional?

Can they convert attention into action?

Sometimes the person with 4,000 deeply connected followers is more valuable locally than someone with 400,000 strangers.

That’s influence.

CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ SHOULD BUILD A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIST

Not:

TOP 20 MOST POPULAR STUDENTS.

Too shallow.

Build:

THE CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ 40 UNDERGRADUATE CREATORS TO WATCH.

HOMECOMING ENTREPRENEURS TO KNOW.

THE DJs DEFINING GEORGIA CAMPUS SOUND.

STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHERS DOCUMENTING THE CULTURE.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF HBCU LEADERS.

WOMEN BUILDING BUSINESSES ACROSS THE AUC.

ATHLETES BUILDING BRANDS BEYOND SPORTS.

GEORGIA STUDENT FOUNDERS TO WATCH.

Now the media platform discovers talent instead of simply repeating fame.

START BEFORE HOMECOMING

That’s crucial.

Don’t wait until October 2.

August.

September.

Start introducing people.

Then Homecoming becomes the culmination.

By the time CRUSH reaches a market, readers already recognize names.

That’s how media creates community before the event.

ATLANTA

Find the people.

ATHENS

Find the people.

THE AUC

Find the people.

ALBANY

Find the people.

SAVANNAH

Find the people.

STATESBORO

Find the people.

Then connect them.

IMAGINE THE NETWORK AFTER ONE SEMESTER

A Morehouse founder meets a Georgia State designer.

A Spelman creator discovers a Savannah State photographer.

An Albany State entrepreneur gets connected with an Atlanta alumnus.

A Georgia Southern DJ gets booked in another market.

A UGA student business gains customers through a feature.

Now CRUSH UNIVERSITY™ isn’t simply covering college culture.

It’s connecting it.

THAT’S MORE VALUABLE THAN ANOTHER CELEBRITY POST

Celebrity creates reach.

Discovery creates identity.

A media platform becomes important when people trust it to show them something they didn’t already know.

Anybody can post the superstar after the superstar arrives.

The harder question is:

WHO DID YOU KNOW BEFORE EVERYBODY KNEW THEM?

That’s editorial value.

FALL 2026 GIVES US THE SEARCH AREA

OCTOBER 2

GEORGIA STATE — ATLANTA

OCTOBER 3

UGA — ATHENS

OCTOBER 9

MOREHOUSE × SPELMAN × CLARK ATLANTA — AUC

OCTOBER 10

ALBANY STATE — ALBANY

OCTOBER 16–17

SAVANNAH STATE — SAVANNAH

NOVEMBER 6–7

GEORGIA SOUTHERN — STATESBORO

But those are just locations.

The real story is the people inside them.

SO BEFORE YOU ASK WHO’S PERFORMING—

Ask who is building.

Before you ask who’s hosting—

ask who is leading.

Before you ask which celebrity is coming—

ask which student is next.

Before you ask what everybody is wearing—

ask who designed it.

Before you repost the picture—

ask who shot it.

Before you dance to the record—

ask who broke it.

Before you buy the ticket—

ask who built the business behind it.

That’s CRUSH UNIVERSITY™.

Not simply covering where culture gathers.

FINDING THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE CULTURE MOVE.

CRUSH MAGAZINE™

CRUSH UNIVERSITY™

FALL 2026

STUDENTS ARE NOT JUST THE AUDIENCE.

THEY’RE THE NEXT GENERATION OF OWNERS.

Meet them before everybody else does.