The College Sports Information Directors of America have selected Gary Anderson of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Bo Carter of the Big 12 Conference and Bill Hancock of the NCAA as the 2005 inductees into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame.
The three will be inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame on July 6 during the organization’s annual workshop, which will be held this year in Philadelphia, Pa.
Anderson has been the Sports Information Director at Nebraska-Omaha since 1979. Prior to his tenure at UNO, he had been in corporate public relations for eight years and had been a sports writer for the Omaha World-Herald.
A CoSIDA member for 26 years, he has also been president of the Omaha Sportscasters Association and the Elkhorn Baseball Association, and served as the interim director of athletics at UNO on three occasions.
Anderson helped with the start of Division I men’s ice hockey to UNO and organized the first season ticket drive for the sport, selling 6,400 season tickets in the first 16 days for the Mavericks. He has also written a book, “Those Were the Knights: The History of Professional Hockey in Omaha.”
Anderson and is wife, Wendy, the director of the public library in Elkhorn, Neb., make their home in Elkhorn and have been married for 35 years. They have four grown children and two grandchildren.
Carter has been at the Big 12 Conference as Sports Information Director since its inception in 1996 after serving as Assistant Commissioner in the Southwest Conference office from 1986-96. He also worked in the Mississippi State University Sports Information Office from 1974-86, including being the Bulldog SID from 1978-86.
A 1974 graduate of Vanderbilt, Carter has is a former President and current Executive Director of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and has worked 21 College World Series, six NCAA men’s and women’s Final Fours and 18 Cotton Bowls.
Carter has been a volunteer with Texas Special Olympics since 1994 and was the chair of the Mississippi State Area 6 Special Olympics Volunteer Public Relations Committee from 1979-81.
Carter is married to Dr. Joanne Pryor-Carter, a bereavement counselor for hospice in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Hancock began his career in sports information as Assistant SID at Oklahoma from 1971-74. Since then, he has served as Media Relations Director and Assistant Commissioner for the Big Eight Conference (1978-88) and was the Director of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship from 1989-2002. He has served as the tournament’s media coordinator since 2002..
A 1972 graduate of Oklahoma, Hancock receive the Katha Quinn Award in 1999, presented annually by the United States Basketball Writers Association to an individual who has provided exemplary service to the media. He was honored in 1995 by the University of Oklahoma with its “Outstanding Journalism Graduate” award. He has also been selected as a media attaché for U.S. Olympic Teams in six Olympic Games.
Hancock’s wife, Nicki, teaches college prep English at Olathe (Kan.) East High School. Their son, Nate, is a corporate trainer with Sprint. The Hancocks’ other son, Will, was killed Jan. 27, 2001, in the crash of an airplane carrying members of the Oklahoma State men’s basketball team home from a game in Boulder, Colo. He was the media relations coordinator for men’s basketball at OSU at the time of the crash.
An avid outdoorsman, in 2001 Hancock completed a 36-day, 2,700-mile bicycle ride across the country. His book about that journey, entitled “Riding with the Blue Moth,” will be published in August.