Hughes Hired as NFCA Director of Media Relations
The National Fastpitch Coaches Association has hired Amy Symons Hughes as its Director of Media Relations. Hughes replaces Brock Turnipseed, who accepted an Assistant Sports Information Director job at Mississippi State University in December.
In addition to coordinating the NFCA’s Division I and II weekly coaches polls and Player of the Week selections, Hughes will serve as the NFCA’s Division II liaison and as the Rules and Officials Committee liaison. She also will edit an on-line publication that will debut in the spring.
“We are very fortunate to be able to hire a person with such vast experience as Amy Hughes,” said Lacy Lee Baker, NFCA Executive Director. “She has already stepped into the position at full-speed, and I’m sure she’ll do an incredible job for the NFCA.”
Hughes is no stranger to collegiate softball media relations, having spent the last 11 years in similar roles. She first started working with the sport as assistant SID at Akron from 1997-99 before accepting a job as assistant SID at UCLA in May of 1999.
During her eight-year tenure as the softball SID with the Bruins, UCLA played in the NCAA Women’s College World Series Championship final game on five occasions, winning back-to-back titles in 2003 and 2004. Hughes worked with numerous NFCA first-team All-Americans and several Olympic Gold Medalists during their college careers, including Stacey Nuveman, Natasha Watley and Tairia Flowers and 2008 first-time Olympian Andrea Duran.
At Akron, Hughes worked with five sports, including softball. She also worked one year in the Minnesota men’s athletics department, where she was the host SID for the 1996 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship, as well as one year at Florida.
A 1993 graduate of DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., Hughes will primarily work out of an office in her hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa.