The following article, written by Cade Andrews, was published on April 17, 2019, via The University Star (star.txstate.edu). It was reprinted with permission from Carrington Tatum, the Editor-in-Chief of The University Star. The article highlights an event sponsored by the Iota Upsilon Chapter at Texas State University (San Marcos, TX).

Football team races in heels to support #Notonmycampus

Editor’s note: This article was updated April 20 to better reflect the event an the organizations involved.

Texas State kicked off its second annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event Sunday at Strahan Coliseum. Despite the rainy morning, the activities went on around Sewell as the sun eventually came up. This event was created to raise awareness around the community of sexual assault that happens all around us.

The event started out with Head Coach Spavital speaking to the participants. Many football players attended the event as well as several chapters of Texas State fraternity and sorority life. The event was organized by Not On My Campus, a student-led organization which strives to reduce sexual assault through education, advocacy and support for survivors, Not on My Campus President Lacie Aden said.

“The point of the event is to get men in the community together and wear high heels to raise awareness of sexual assault,” Aden said. “This is our second time doing it and the amount of people that showed up was amazing.”

Aden said she started the event last year and said it’s important to get men involved in this issue because there voices need to be heard too.

“The idea is to get men to standup against the cause because they are a big solution in all of this,” Aden said. “Men and women are sexually assaulted all the time and it’s an issue that happens all over the world.”

The football players attending the event started off with a 60-meter high-heel sprint. The race was followed by an egg toss competition.

According to James Sherman, the director of player development for Texas State football, the goal of the team and the event was to allow the players involved to use their platform to spread a positive message of understanding and support.

“It was our goal to get guys from football out here cause our student-athletes have a huge platform,” Sherman said. “It was kinda hard to get them out here at first, but once they got here they had a good time.”

Texas State’s Theta Chi fraternity sponsored the event but members of Delta Sigma Phi also ran in the event. Delta Gamma, Alpha Xi Delta, Gamma Phi Beta and Delta Zeta sorority also represented their organizations in support of the event and #notonmycampus.

For more information or to donate, visit the Not On My Campus-Texas State Facebook or Twitter Page. The local chapter’s website is tinyurl.com/nomctxst.