In this Special Report, learn how EarnMyDegree Agent Cao went behind enemy lines to demonstrate how we can bring education to the masses. Namely: how the masses can efficiently earn their college degree. While two casualties were suffered (two prominent flags were captured before crossing into enemy territory), Agent Cao & Co. ultimately succeeded in “showing the flag” on national television.

After arriving on the site – Lubbock, TX, for an ESPN-broadcast college football game between Texas and Texas Tech – Agent Cao selected a crew of brave mercenaries to aid in his mission. The mission: to get very large flags displayed to a national college football audience by displaying them behind the Game Day halftime commentators.

Success was achieved, and Agent Cao will be awarded a medal of educational honor in an upcoming ceremony. Here is his story in his own words.

Working in higher education has afforded me the pleasure of traveling to unique locations for events across the country. I work hard and have a little bit of a reputation. So it wasn’t a surprise when our EVP emailed me with the opportunity to execute a guerilla marketing campaign on a college campus.ESPN Game Day and their rotating college football pre-game show set their stage in Lubbock, TX, for a game featuring Texas vs. Tech (in Texas, it’s either Texas, A&M, or Tech. refer to it otherwise would depict you as an outsider).

The mission was simple. Introduce our EarnMyDegree and StudyAbroad.com brands to the football-loving nation.

Having never been to a college football game before (I blame my parents for sending me to a small Jesuit school), I accepted the challenge with honor, knowing this could be only shot at a college football game; I’d have to get it right.

Morning of the Game Day program. Delayed and deterred after a night of investigating small-town college bars, I arrived late to the camp out for a premium spot. I have my ways, however; and this agent was able to finagle up front for premium position, doing so with a method I picked from NYC nightclub talents: the greasy handshake. However, throngs of students built a crowd around, I knew there was no way I could hold of them off all by myself. I called for reinforcements.With a crew of 6 Kappa Sigma agents and one field lieutenant, whom I picked up on in Dallas on my way in, our banners were flown for optimum air time and successfully picked up.

But the mission wasn’t over.

Tech Tailgate Party. I have come to accept that I am a lone star on the scene. But I don’t mean that I’m a field agent trained in the ways of the ninja, able to disappear from a crowd of one. I am that, but, in the Texas football scene, I was doubly invisible. No affiliation to either teams, a kid who came up in the Northwest, with no sports hope for a winning team unless the FC Sounders (Seattle’s new soccer team) can pull off the signing of the century and buyout Cristiano Ronaldo ‘s contract. The region no longer has a professional basketball team, pro baseball just set a record low, professional football is an early disappointment… wait, I am not here to tell of my town’s sports ineptness—I am here for the college game of the year.

“So where are you from?” a person would ask. Over and over, in fact, because it turns out everyone here, as a rule, asks where each other is from. Texas, of course, is a BIG state.The story of our mission—successful!—caught the celebrity wave and me and my fellow agents became quite the talk of scene. From one tailgate to another: “Dem are boys from Seattle, here on some kinda mission” was murmured amongst the group. Most waved us over and offer the best of Texas cookin’, from Jambalaya to pork loin to Brisket. I salivate now, just thinking of it. Big shout-out to Scott, the Oklahoma-Mack Brown-alum-Tech-supporting-drill-salesman who was overly gracious to us, who were, to him, strangers. What hospitality. A nod to 4-degrees-of-separation-friend (my field lieutenant worked with his cousin in Dallas, whom we met by chance in a 45 min long honey bucket line), Mark Timien. And many other friendly faces along the sidewalk of University Ave.

I decided to pick up a Tech shirt that depicts a heckling of UT students referring to something about their mothers unfavorable sense of fashion. I figured to go with the home team to limit my visibility (also to reduce my probability of being heckled). I made the right decision. In Lubbock, I had never seen such proudly, wildly displayed passion for a team affiliation. All friends and foe decision were made solely based on the color of a T-shirt.

Mission: Accomplished.