This page provides an outline for how to build a Merit achievement that wraps up an athletic team's season. In order to personalize the achievement for your students you will need to prepare a spreadsheet of student data to use as placeholders throughout the achievement. Here are the placeholders used in this story:
- FIRST NAME*
- LAST NAME*
- HOMETOWN*
- ZIP CODE*
- EMAIL ADDRESS*
- CLASSIFICATION - The student's year in school (eg. junior, senior)
- POSITION - The position the student plays (eg. point guard, center)
- STATISTICS - A partial sentence describing the student's performance over the course of the season (eg. "16.2 points per game, a 52.6% field goal percentage, 5.9 assists per game and 3.3 rebounds per game).
*= Data required by Merit
Achievement Title & Summary
Your achievement title and summary will be used for the online version of your story and shared across social media. They will also appear on your school's Merit page.
Your summary should act as a comprehensive overview of the achievement. After your summary, readers will see a list of students who are part of the story.
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Achievement Title: Merit University Badgers Men’s Basketball Wraps Up Stellar 2026-27 Season Achievement Summary: Merit University Men’s Basketball team concluded its 2026-27 season with a 23-4 record and Noble Conference Championship. The Badgers had a phenomenal 11-2 record against conference opponents and an 12-0 record at home. |
Individual Story
Your Merit achievement will create personalized online stories for each of your students. Throughout this story you will insert placeholders for the data from your spreadsheet. These placeholders are in [BRACKETS] in the text below.
This version of your story can also be sent to newspapers interested in just one student. Merit will automatically turn it into an individual press release for you and add your saved boilerplate.
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Headline: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] and the MU Badgers End a Record-Breaking 2026-17 Season Body: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], and the Merit University Men's Basketball team concluded their 2026-27 season with a 23-4 record and Noble Conference Championship. [LAST NAME], a [CLASSIFICATION] [POSITION] with the Badgers, finished the season with [STATISTICS]. The Badgers finished the season with a phenomenal 11-2 record against conference opponents and an 12-0 record at home. |
Note: The spreadsheet used in this sample story includes placeholders for the student's year in school (eg. junior, senior) and the position they play (eg. point guard, center). It also includes a placeholder with a partial sentence with some statistics (eg. "16.2 points per game, a 52.6% field goal percentage, 5.9 assists per game and 3.3 rebounds per game).
Group Press Release
This is the version of your press release that will be sent to newspapers interested in multiple students from your spreadsheet. It's a local story that will include a list of only the students from a paper's coverage area.
Your group press release will have an opening, repeating and closing section. The opening and repeating sections will be the same for every newspaper. The repeating section will contain all of your placeholders and will be the only part of the press release that varies from paper to paper. Use the last sentence of your opening to introduce your list of students.
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Headline: MU Badgers Wrap Up a Record-Breaking 2026-17 Season Opening: The Merit University Men's Basketball team concluded their 2026-27 season with a 23-4 record and Noble Conference Championship. The following local student athletes were part of the team: Repeating: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], a [CLASSIFICATION] [POSITION] finished the season with [STATISTICS]. Closing: The Badgers finished the season with a phenomenal 11-2 record against conference opponents and an 12-0 record at home. |
Note: Merit will automatically add your saved boilerplate to the closing section of your group press release.
Add Images and Publish
Achievements are at their best with images included. If possible, include a photo with your story. Get a picture of the achievement in action or a group shot of the students involved. If you're unable to include a photo, instead consider using a school or department logo. The image(s) you choose will appear on your online stories and also go to media recipients.
Use this template as inspiration to publish your next achievement. Log into your Merit account here. If you’re looking for more details on how to build this template into the Merit achievement workflow you can follow the step by step tutorial here.