Sports teams that are not operated as part of the ISU athletic department do not receive funds and must find other ways to support themselves.

The ISU hockey team spent four days last week doing that.

The team spent April 1 to 4 making calls from the basement of the apartment building on 246 N. Hyland St. to roughly 2,500 Cyclone Hockey alumni and sponsors for its annual Call-a-thon. ISU coach Al Murdoch said in an email that the unofficial pledges tally up to $44,536, which is a new record.

Everyone who made calls included the players, marketing team members, pep band members and Murdoch in three shifts between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. each day.

“They always pull off the top 20 or 30 donors and have me call them because I’ll ask them for the big bucks,” Murdoch said.

The unofficial pledges that Murdoch got himself totaled up to $23,225, Murdoch said in the email. The rest of the unofficial pledges totaled $21,311.

During their calls, Murdoch and the players update the alumni, sponsors and season ticket holders on how things are going with Cyclone Hockey.

“We don’t call them just to raise money, we call them to talk about the successes … of Cyclone Hockey, they like to hear that,” Murdoch said.

Players worked two-hour shifts each day from 3-5, 5-7 and 7-9 p.m. ISU captain and defenseman Brandon Clark said the calls to the alumni are the best ones to make.

“A lot of them know coach Murdoch because he’s been around here forever, so those ones are a lot of fun,” Clark said. “You get to talk and hear some old stories and see what they’re doing now, where their major at Iowa State took them and their experiences from here and their experiences with their jobs now, so it’s really cool.”

Clark is a senior and will most likely be receiving one of those calls next year and he said he can’t wait.

“I can’t wait until somebody calls me from Cyclone Hockey,” Clark said. “We’re going to take them for a little spin, a little ride for a while, but hopefully I’ll have the money where I can help give back to the program and give back to the guys on the team.”