College Sports Information Directors of America

Appalachian State University athletics announced that Mike Flynn has been promoted to the post of sports information director and the department has hired Joanna Riley and Jonathan Caskey as assistant sports information directors.

Flynn came to Appalachian in June 2003 as an assistant sports information director under former SID Kelby Siler, who left ASU to take a position as associate athletics director at his alma mater, The College of Mount Saint Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Flynn served as the primary media contact for two championship squads in his first year with the Mountaineers, handling sports information duties for ASU’s NorPac East Division co-champion field hockey team and the Southern Conference North Division champion volleyball program. He also worked with Appalachian’s women’s basketball and baseball squads. In addition to overseeing all sports information efforts for ASU’s 20 varsity sports, Flynn will serve as the primary media contact for Mountaineer football, baseball and men’s and women’s golf.

Prior to his arrival in Boone, Flynn was a member of the athletics media relations office at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas from June 2001-May 2003. At TCU, he handled all media operations for the opening of the Horned Frogs’ $7 million, 2,500-seat Lupton Baseball Stadium and coordinated publicity efforts for two baseball all-Americans.

A 2001 graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with a B.A. in speech communication, Flynn served two years as a student intern in the RedHawks’ athletics media relations office, including a stint as interim assistant director in the spring of 2001. He completed coursework for a M.S. in advertising/public relations from TCU in 2003. The 1997 graduate of Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio married his wife, Erin, on July 26, 2003.

Riley joins the Appalachian staff after a year as the assistant sports information director at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tenn. During her time at TTU, Riley served as the primary media contact for the Golden Eagles’ volleyball, men’s basketball, baseball, tennis and rifle programs.

A 2003 graduate of Tulane University, Riley assisted in sports information efforts at Tulane, the University of New Orleans and the Sun Belt Conference during her time in the Crescent City. In those capacities, she had the opportunity to work at the 2003 men’s basketball and 2002 women’s volleyball NCAA Final Fours, as well as the 2000, ‘01 and ‘02 Sugar Bowls.

The Laramie, Wyo. native graduated from Laramie High School in 1999. She will work primarily with ASU’s volleyball, men’s basketball, tennis, cross country and track and field squads.

Rounding out ASU’s sports information staff, Caskey is no stranger to the High Country, having spent the previous year as a public affairs assistant at the Southern Conference office in Spartanburg, S.C. With the SoCon, Caskey was the league’s primary media contact for seven sports and assisted with the production and management of the conference’s 19 championship events.

As an undergraduate at Furman University, Caskey worked in the school’s multimedia services and athletics departments, as well as assisting at the Atlanta Falcons’ training camp in 2001. He earned a B.A. in history from Furman in 2003.

A 1999 graduate of Eastside High School in Taylors, S.C., Caskey married his wife, Kelley, on June 28, 2003. His primary sport assignments at ASU include men’s and women’s soccer, women’s basketball and softball.