November 3, 2009To: CoSIDA MembershipFr: CoSIDA President Justin Doherty (University of Wisconsin) and Executive Director John HumenikRe: Recap of October Board of Directors Activities and InitiativesBelow, please find our monthly report for CoSIDA Board of Directors and staff actions and initiatives for the month of October. As always, we welcome your comments, suggestions and feedback. Our contact information can be found at the end of this newsletter.
We wish everyone continued successes during this demanding fall/winter sports crossover period, and thank you for taking the time to read our correspondences.
MARKETING/PR INITIATIVES> CoSIDA President Justin Doherty (Wisconsin) will contribute a "CoSIDA Column" to every issue of NACDA's
Athletics Administration Magazine in 2009-10, and the first column appeared in the October issue. Each issue is sent to over 10,000 university and athletics administrators, with CoSIDA's voice, thoughts and expertise being shared with these key constituents. NACDA’s Athletics Administration Magazine is published eight times a year (October, November, December, February, March, April, June and August). To read Justin’s October column here:
http://cosida.com/news/2009/10/2/1002095329_8763.aspx.
> First VP Larry Dougherty (Temple), Chair of the Strategic Branding Committee, conducted a conference call (Oct. 7) with that leadership group to discuss the best ways to graphically present a Board-approved logo concept and branding identity statement for the organization/profession. This branding initiative will better position – and reposition – CoSIDA within the overall intercollegiate athletics community.
This committee is comprised of the following individuals: Presidents of various organizations -
Clarion’s Rich Herman of D II-SIDA, DePauw’s Bill Wagner of D III-SIDA, Sam Ghrist (Eastern Oregon University ) of NAIA-SIDA, Rob Knox (Kutztown) of BC-SIDA, Sage College’s Ann King, president of FAME [Female Athletic Media Relations Executives]; Eric McDowell (Union College), Chair of CoSIDA’s College Division Management Advisory Committee; Charles Bloom (SEC), Chair of CoSIDA’s University Division Management Advisory Committee; Rod Williamson (Vanderbilt), Chair of Senior Athletic Communications Committee; Past President Nick Joos (Baylor); and John Paquette (Big East) of the CoSIDA Board. They all reviewed and voted on several different concepts of the approved strategic logo concept and forwarded a finalized recommendation of CoSIDA’s new logo to the CoSIDA Board for discussion and final selection/approval on Nov. 5.
> Over the month of October,
13 of CoSIDA-based articles and features appeared on NACDA’s Daily Review (email blast) and 10 on the NCAA’s News Direct (email blast). Due to this effort, several thousands of university and athletics administrators are being exposed to professional and organizational news, news that primarily only appeared on the CoSIDA website in the past and was thus only viewed by our membership.
> On Oct. 8,
Executive Director John Humenik, Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal and Lawrence Fan (San Jose State), Chair of the Job Seekers Committee, conducted a conference call with Curtis Hollomon of the NCAA Educational Services Department regarding CoSIDA’s participation in the 2010
NCAA’s Student-Athlete Career Forum scheduled for May.
The purpose of this forum is to expose student-athletes to various administrative careers in collegiate sports. CoSIDA, which will be making its first-ever appearance at this function, will now start the process of working on various presentation materials over the next few months to provide to student-athletes attending and for the actual Forum in Indianapolis next May.
> On Oct. 23, CoSIDA announced a
partnership with the V Foundation for Cancer Research and other collegiate administrative organizations in promoting and raising cancer research awareness in conjunction with
celebrating National College Football Day (NCFD) on Nov. 7.
This is the sixth annual NCFD, which was originated by the AT&T Cotton Bowl to honor the first college football game played between Princeton and Rutgers on Nov. 6, 1869. The AT&T Cotton Bowl took on The V Foundation for Cancer Research in 2006 as its charitable partner to help gain awareness and funding for cancer research via this celebration event. CoSIDA now joins with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), the National Association of Collegiate Football Officials (NACFO), and the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the Athletic Equipment Managers Association (AEMA) to commemorate the annual birthday of college football while supporting the fight against cancer. CoSIDA’s Board approved this relationship at its meetings in San Antonio this past June.
2010 SAN FRANCISCO CONVENTION BASED
> 1st VP Larry Dougherty (Temple) finalized an agreement with Ari Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary from 2001-03 and is currently chief executive for Ari Fleischer Sports Communications, to address our Convention as keynote speaker. Fleischer will address CoSIDA at the July 6th luncheon as well as present on a strategic messaging panel session later that day.
> Executive Director John Humenik and Treasurer Dave Wohlhueter continued to work with the San Francisco Marriott Marquis on the need for an amended Convention contract. Several contract revisions were proposed and discussed during October and we have reached an agreement on a revised contract that significantly reduces our financial liability for the upcoming 2010 July convention. Based on a review of various comparative charts and trend analysis that Board members evaluated over a course of several weeks, a decision was made during the Board’s October conference call to
set the pre-registration fee for the San Francisco convention at $190, an increase of $40. This is still significantly below the actual per-person cost for the 2010 convention which we expect will exceed $300 per person.
The convention data reviewed by the Board over the past decade shows that it is now costing over twice as much per person for the organization to put on the current convention as the per person registration fee. While this discussion was taking place, and before a final decision on the registration fee was reached,
treasurer Dave Wohlhueter and John Humenik had been working with San Francisco hotel staff on the need to renegotiate the contract that was signed several years ago; as part of those talks the hotel convention rate was reduced from $139 to $129 per night.
The Board determined that if someone is planning on coming to San Francisco for the convention for four days/nights their overall hotel bill will now be $40 less and that pays for the needed registration fee increase. The total registration fee/hotel costs will be the same despite the registration fee increase. On Oct. 15th, Justin Doherty sent out a letter to the full membership on this issue (
http://cosida.com/news/2009/10/16/1016092319_8543.aspx).
> The first meeting of the
Hall of Fame Gala planning committee was held on Oct. 22.
Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal - now CoSIDA’s primary convention planner - will Chair that organizational committee which includes
John Humenik, Rob Knox (Kutztown), Jeff Hodges (North Alabama) and Joe Browning (UNC-Wilmington) from the CoSIDA Board as well as
Bernie Cafarelli (Notre Dame) and Jim Seavey (Mass. Maritime) from the Academic All-America Committee. This event will combine the annual CoSIDA Hall of Fame Induction and Academic All-America Hall of Fame Induction events into one “Gala” event on the evening of July 6.
> 2nd VP Doug Walker (Alabama) provided the officers with a first draft of a convention logo. That is now being finalized for presentation to the full Board on a future call and it is hoped that the logo can then be used for various convention projects starting in mid November.
DIVISIONAL INITIATIVES> Rich Herman (Clarion), President of DII-SIDA, and Eric Schoh (AD at Wayne State College in Nebraska), 3rd VP for the DII Athletic Directors Association, began their monthly conference calls to discuss appropriate matters at the DII level as it relates to communications-based issues. This arranged monthly call came as a result of a pro-active approach by the CoSIDA and DII-SIDA leadership seeking to build better working relationship with that divisional AD group.
> John Humenik sent a note of congratulations to Jim Naumovich - Commissioner of the Great Lakes Valley Conference - on his appointment as President of the DII Conference Commissioners Association. John indicated that both the leadership of CoSIDA and DII-SIDA are ready to assist him and his group in any way that they feel appropriate in dealing with communications-based issues and challenges within Division II.
> DII-SIDA leadership/membership had a national conference call on Oct. 22.
> College Division Management Advisory Committee Chair Eric McDowell (Union College) conducted an Oct. 20th conference call with that group's leadership.
> University Division Management Advisory Committee Chair Charles Bloom (SEC) conducted a conference call on Oct. 28th with the leadership of that group.
> Leah Kareti ( Director for Division III at NCAA) and Dan Dutcher (VP for Division III at NCAA) contacted John Humenik to setup a Nov. 10th meeting with DIII-SIDA leadership to discuss a identity branding initiative that is being undertaken for Division III. Leah and Dan wanted to visit with
Bill Wagner (DePauw), President of DIII-SIDA, the VP’s for DIII-SIDA [Dave Wrath (Augustana) and Larry Happel (Central College)] and Eric McDowell , Chair of the College Division Management Advisory Committee, to discuss this identity branding initiatives in preparation for the Division III meetings at the January NCAA convention in Atlanta.
COMMITTEE BASED> CoSIDA Secretary/Digest Editor Jeff Hodges (North Alabama) continued to work with the Board’s leadership to coordinate a review of the CoSIDA Constitution and make recommendations to the full Board on what updates need to take place (content and language revisions) due to various changes within the organization and its structure over the past few years.
> The 2010 Convention Program Committee, chaired by
1st VP Larry Dougherty (Temple) and Dennis O’Donnell (Rochester), conducted a conference call on Oct. 28th. The committee continues to refine ideas and plans for workshop panels, breakouts sessions and programming for the San Francisco convention.
> The Publications Contest Committee, chaired by Chad Grubbs (Hardin-Simmons), announced nomination criteria and deadlines for the 2009-10 year. This year, those who have published digital/online media guides ONLY may submit their publication(s) for consideration by following the guidelines listed. The Publications Handbook is found at
http://cosida.com/contests.aspx .
> The Writing Contest Committee, chaired by Dennis Switzer (South Atlantic Conference), announced winners in various categories for the 2008-09 calendar year. Both the NCADA and NCAA websites and daily email blasts carried the winning entries.
> The Goodwill Committee, chaired by Sam Atkinson (Gallaudet), worked with Barb Kowal in getting the word out to our membership about CoSIDA’s partnership with the V Foundation for Cancer Research other collegiate administrative groups (like the American Football Coaches Association) in jointly promoting and raising cancer research awareness in conjunction with celebrating National College Football Day on Nov. 7.
RESEARCH/SURVEY> Joe Moore, a former SID at Central Missouri who is now a professor in the Communications Department at that school, continued to work with John Humenik on various preliminary data relative to a dissertation he will be writing that deals with “Earned Influence in College Sports PR- Why Do Some Have It and Others Don’t.” Joe will be working with the Board and membership relative to this project, including coming to San Francisco to conduct interviews with the organization’s leadership and membership. During October, Secretary/Digest editor Jeff Hodges provided Joe with some requested background data and Joe did phone interviews with various members of leadership groups within CoSIDA. The Board leadership believes that this project/study will assist it in the future with regard to strategic decisions and planning as it relates to helping advance the profession and its people.
FUND RAISING/SPONSORSHIPS> John Humenik had several conference calls with IMG during the month finalizing a “sales” document that IMG will use on CoSIDA’s behalf to approach new potential sponsors. XOS Digital, Sports Video Group, NewTek, The News Market, Sony and Official Sports Report were among several groups that received introductory proposals from CoSIDA during the past month regarding their interest in a corporate sponsorship/partnership arrangement with CoSIDA.
If you have any ideas/contacts with an organization that you feel might want to be/should be associated with CoSIDA please let Executive Director John Humenik know so that he can follow-up if appropriate (jhumenik@bellsouth.net).
EDUCATION-BASED> John Humenik and Barb Kowal continued to have discussions during the month of October with XOS Digital on our interest in working with them to present a series of webinars to the collegiate community dealing with various aspects of digital media.
> Barb Kowal conducted a conference call with
CoSIDA’s New Media/Technology Committee to try and determine several things that group could do in terms of web content, teleconferences, webinars that would benefit the organizational membership.
If you have any ideas for future educational based webinars and/or conference calls please contact Barb Kowal (barbkowal@cosida.com) or CoSIDA Past President Charles Bloom, SEC Associate Commissioner of Media Relations (cbloom@sec.org).
MISCELLANEOUS> On Oct. 26th,
John Humenik represented CoSIDA at the
Knight Commission Forum on Intercollegiate Athletics in Miami.
> John Humenik and Barb Kowal worked with the leadership of
TRZ Sports, a long-time CoSIDA corporate partner, to develop several alternative “conference call” formats to meet this growing need within the organization to service various groups that want to conduct regular membership calls for certain segments of the organization.
> Barb Kowal continued to work with the staff at ICS on a full redesign of the CoSIDA website which the organizational leadership hopes to launch in January of 2010.
> A reminder to all that the
ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America® nomination and voting process is well underway. The men’s and women’s soccer All-District teams have been announced, and the football and women’s volleyball All-District teams will be announced Nov. 5.
Please remember that in order to nominate a student-athlete for an upcoming sport (men’s/women’s basketball nominations open Jan. 5), you MUST be a current 2009-10 dues-paying member of CoSIDA. Don’t penalize deserving student-athletes – please renew your memberships in order to ensure that they are considered for Academic All-America honors!
> CoSIDA members are encouraged to also
enter the 2009-10 Publications Contest competition. The fall sports entry period is now through December 1. For those who have digital/online versions of their publications, you CAN submit copies of those for the contest. Contestants will have to make the three copies and send them in like any other publication -- and the rule on color still applies, so print them in black and white even if you have color in the on-line version. For more information on the Publications contest, please go to
http://cosida.com/contests.aspx.
Again, continued good wishes as the fall seasons move into their final stages and the winter sports season is upon us!
Justin Doherty, CoSIDA President
JMD@athletics.wisc.eduJohn Humenik, CoSIDA Executive Director
jhumenik@bellsouth.net