story and photos courtesy of The Gazette
by Jeff Johnson, Staff Writer
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Ryan Workman had just recorded the previous play into his computer and turned to a reporter seated behind him in the Clark Field press box with a radio to his ear.
‘‘Did he make it?’’ Workman breathlessly wanted to know.
The Coe College sports information director’s first and foremost attention was being focused on the CoeSimpson football game being played in front of him. But Workman also wanted to find out how his beloved Iowa State Cyclones were doing against those hated Iowa Hawkeyes.
‘‘Yes!’’ Workman said, pumping his fists, after finding out Ryan Culbertson had indeed nailed a short kick in the final seconds that secured an ISU upset win.
A former Boone resident and longtime ISU fan, Workman was multi-tasking on this day, if you will. But that’s something he does almost every day. It’s Workman’s job to keep track of all 21 varsity sports at Coe. He attends countless home and away events, keeps game statistics and disseminates final results to the media.
He writes and edits game programs for events, updates the school’s athletics Web site and handles anything else the local, area or national media might need. That includes interview requests or, on this day, phoning in a final score to ESPN.
At big schools like Iowa and Iowa State, the sports information department has multiple employees. Specific sports are handled by specific people in the departments.
At small schools like Coe, Cornell, Mount Mercy and Luther, just about everything is done by one person. It gets to the point sometimes when that person doesn’t know if he or she is coming or going.
‘‘That is definitely the case,’’ Workman said.
‘‘The sports are spread out, obviously, over different seasons. Last year, the fall for me was the hardest. Then by the spring, it felt like I had been doing it forever. It’s just one of those things. And I feel so much more comfortable this year doing things than last year.’’
Workman is in his second year at Coe. He’s an old pro compared to Kerry Kahl, the Cornell SID who’s in his first year on the hilltop after spending the previous two years at Iowa Wesleyan. Kahl’s background is completely different. A former standout athlete at Clarence-Lowden High School, he worked in the newspaper business before turning to sports information.
‘‘One of the things was I really didn’t like the late hours in newspapers,’’ Kahl said. ‘‘I’d get off work at 1 a.m., drive home, and it’d be about 2:30 before I’d get to bed. It’s a different kind of lifestyle.
‘‘Then I met my wife, Melissa, and I just decided I wanted to do something different, with more normal hours.’’
Not that an SID’s job has normal 9-to5 hours. Events are held mostly at night and particularly on weekends.
At smaller schools, Kahl, Workman, Dave Blanchard (Luther), Jason Furler (Mount Mercy) and Howard Thompson (Upper Iowa) are heavily reliant on student help. At the Coe-Simpson football game, for instance, Workman had volunteers helping him determine ballcarriers, pass receivers and tacklers for each play.
It’s definitely a group effort with Workman, Kahl, Blanchard, etc., etc., orchestrating it. ‘‘You have to love sports to do this job,’’ Workman said. ‘‘And you have to love everything else that goes with it, not just watching it. You have to know the numbers, know the rules for every sport. Soccer, for instance, was a big sport for me that I didn’t know much about. Now I can do a game with ease, so to say.
‘‘You have to realize that no one really cares about your time, how much you put in. You have to accept that. That’s not a big deal to me.’’
Kahl said one of his main, and perhaps most arduous, tasks is constantly updating Cornell’s Web site. It’s a much different day and age, with the Internet providing people with quick and updated information.
‘‘That’s a lot of time,’’ Kahl said. ‘‘I don’t think a lot of people realize how much (work) that takes. They just expect stuff to be on there.’’
You’d think the goal for smaller-school SIDs would be to work their way up to a higherpaying, more prestigious gig at an Iowa or Iowa State. But you get the feeling from people like Workman and Kahl that they’re content doing what they’re doing.
Blanchard, for example, has been at Luther for years. Furler is a Mount Mercy graduate who has a dual title as SID and Athletics Facilities and Events Manager at his alma mater.
‘‘I like the bigger level,’’ Workman said. ‘‘But the whole Dominique Douglas issue at Iowa, that’s something I don’t want to have to deal with. Stuff like that.
‘‘The kids here are all very easy to work with. When The Gazette calls or KCRG calls and wants to do a story, they all love it. I just love to see them shine, I guess.’’