Five sports information professionals will be inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame at the 2009 San Antonio Convention on Thursday, June 25, 2009. The class of 2009 includes Minnesota State Mankato’s Paul Allan, Vanderbilt University’s Tammy Boclair, McNeese State’s Louis Bonnette, South Carolina State's William "Bill" Hamilton and Union College’s Eric McDowell.
Allan, who just completed his 24th year at MSU, has been at the school since 1985. He supervises public relations and media operations for the MSU Department of Athletics and provides oversight of the Department’s marketing, promotions and community relations initiatives.
Under Allan’s direction, the MSU Athletic Communications office has won 19 CoSIDA national publication awards, including ten “Best in the Nation” citations. The Calgary, Alberta, native has served on several committees at MSU and with CoSIDA. In 2007, Allan was named the recipient of the Warren Berg Award. He also was presented with the NCC Legacy Award in 2008. Allan, who spent three years in the sports information office at Northern Arizona University prior to coming to MSU in 1985, is a 1982 West Texas State graduate and earned a master’s degree from MSU.
Allan has served as a press officer for the U.S. Olympic Committee at two U.S. Olympic Festivals (1990 in Minneapolis and 1991 in Los Angeles), one Winter World University Games (1999 in Poprad, Slovakia) and one Winter Olympic Games (1992 in Albertville, France). He served as the Venue Press Chief for hockey at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City and also spent three years as the league information director for the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (1989-92). In addition to serving on several committees at MSU and with CoSIDA, Allan is a member of the Harlon Hill National Advisory Committee which selects the NCAA Division II football Player of the Year.
In the summer of 2007 Allan was named the recipient of the Warren Berg Award – given annually to a CoSIDA college division member who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college sports information and who, by his or her activities, has brought dignity and prestige to the profession. He also was presented with the NCC Legacy Award in 2008.
Allan, who spent three years in the sports information office at Northern Arizona University prior to coming to MSU in 1985, is a 1982 West Texas State graduate (he also owns a master’s degree from MSU).
He and his wife, Lori (a 1992 MSU graduate), live in Eagle Lake, Minn., and have three sons – Seth, Sean and Jack.
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Boclair, Senior Vice-President of Alday Communications and a former sports information professional at Vanderbilt University, the Southland Conference and Louisiana State University, was CoSIDA’s second female president, serving her term in 2004-05, and presided over the organization’s only international workshop in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Since joining CoSIDA in 1986, she has served on numerous CoSIDA committees in addition to her time on the board and in the presidential rotation. She has maintained a vital and active presence as an associate member of CoSIDA since leaving Vanderbilt University in 2005 to become a senior vice president of Alday Communications, Inc.
Boclair has served as a sports information professional for three different universities and one conference. She began her career at her alma mater, Stephen F. Austin State University, 1985; was an Assistant SID at LSU from 1988-92 and was the Director of Media Relations for the Southland Conference from 1992-95.
In 1996, she was hired at Vanderbilt as the first SID devoted solely to women's basketball, a role she held until moving to Alday Communications in 2005. The 1999-2000 Vanderbilt women’s basketball media guide, produced by Boclair and former assistant media relations director Kristi Strang, was named “Best in the Nation”.
Prior to working at Vanderbilt, Boclair served as Associate Commissioner of the Southland Conference. Boclair served as a member of the NCAA Media Coordination Committee for the Women's Basketball Final Four for many years and was the media relations coordinator of the 1998 NCAA Mideast Regional.
Bonnette, the Senior Associate Athletic Director and Sports Information Director at McNeese State University is completing his 44th year as the SID at McNeese. Few people in college athletics – either as an administrator or as a coach – can match Bonnette’s tireless dedication and commitment to his craft. Fewer still can claim to have been a part of a family as dedicated to college athletics.
A native of Pineville, La., and a 1963 graduate of Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism, Bonnette is a past two-term president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA) and has been the recipient of that association’s highest honor, the Mac Russo Award. He has received the Distinguished Service Award from the LSWA and has been inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, in the sports journalism division.
He is a member of the McNeese State Hall of Fame and has been inducted into the Southland Conference Hall of Honor. Bonnette served three years (1963-66) as the sports editor of the Louisiana edition of the Beaumont Enterprise newspaper and joined McNeese State in April, 1966.
Bonnette may be the only SID ever to have his school’s football field named after him, an honor bestowed on him in 2008. He has been a member of CoSIDA since 1966 and serves on the Academic All-American Committee and has worked a total of 493 straight football games for the Cowboys.
He and his wife, Willene, have been married for 43 years. It is a testament to Bonnette’s commitment, professionalism and that both of his sons, Michael and Matthew, are also sports information professionals. Michael is the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information at LSU and Matthew is an Assistant SID at Northwestern State. Bonnette’s daughter, Anne, is a registered nurse.
Hamilton, a 2009 inductee into the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame, is in his 36th year as the sports publicist for S.C. State. Over more than three decades at the Orangeburg, S.C., institution, the veteran publicist and talented writer has provided features articles and game stories for various newspapers and magazines in an effort to bring awareness to the achievements and accomplishments of South Carolina State’s athletics program.
Hamilton has promoted numerous athletes who have gone on to distinguish themselves in the National Football League and other professions including Pro Football Hall of Famer Harry Carson (New York Giants) and National Football League standouts Robert Porcher (Detroit Lions), Donnie Shell (Pittsburgh Steelers), Charlie Brown (Washington Redskins), Edwin Bailey (Seattle Seahawks), Dwayne Harper (Seattle Seahawks), William Judson (Miami Dolphins), and Dextor Clinkscale (Dallas Cowboys).
As a CoSIDA member for 35 years, Hamilton has garnered many accolades, including the CoSIDA Bob Kenworthy Community Service Award (1998) and the CoSIDA Trailblazer Award (2005). He also has received several CoSIDA publication and writing awards during his long tenure at SCSU.
Hamilton is also a member of the Black College Sports Information Directors Association (BCSIDA) and received the BCSIDA Cal Jacox-Champ Clark Outstanding SID Award in 1989. In 2005, he received the All-American Football Foundation Scoop Hudgins Outstanding SID Award.
Hamilton was the SC State University Staff Employee of the Year in 1999 and was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at his alma mater in 2002. He also earned his school’s NAFEO Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2006. He is a Life Member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
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McDowell joined the Union staff in March of 2005, and became the Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Information in 2008. A veteran of nearly 30 years in collegiate and professional sports information and media relations, he began his career as the SID at the University of New Haven in 1980. He was named the SID as a junior in college and remained as the head of the office once he graduated.
In 1986, he made the transition from SID to Assistant SID at the University of New Hampshire. While at UNH, he served as the assistant from 1986 to 1991. In 1991, he was promoted to Director of Sports Communications and Internal Marketing. During his years at New Hampshire, he also served from 1988 through 1991 as the Information Officer of the Yankee Conference, a Division I-AA football league.
McDowell, a native of Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod, served as the SID at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo for five years, and then became the Director of Media Relations for the NBA's Golden State Warriors. Working in the fourth-largest media market for the NBA, McDowell had a game-night staff of 24 individuals and was responsible for the production of the Warriors’ media guide and the monthly publication, Warrior Magazine. His attention was redirected while there as he was the point person during the Latrell Sprewell crisis.
McDowell returned to the East Coast and later worked for the Lowell Lock Monsters of the American Hockey League, and served at SUNY Brockport for four years. McDowell was a media supervisor for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta and has volunteered at numerous NCAA Championship events for a variety of sports and divisions.
Active in both ECAC-SIDA (Eastern College Athletic Conference Sports Information Directors' Association) and CoSIDA, McDowell hosted the 2002 ECAC-SIDA workshop in Lowell, Mass., and received the 2005 ECAC-SIDA Irving T. Marsh Service Bureau Award. He has hosted numerous panels at both workshops over the years, and served on the CoSIDA Executive Board as a national College Division Representative for a three-year term (2005-08).
During his term, he worked with the NCAA to secure placement for a permanent display of the CoSIDA Hall of Fame at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis. He also served on a committee to develop a new position for CoSIDA, the first full-time Executive Director. A long-time member of the Program Committee, McDowell is now serving as the Chair of CoSIDA's College Division Management Advisory Committee, representing the membership in NCAA Division II and III as well as NAIA and Canadian sports information professionals.
McDowell and his wife, Jennifer, reside in Colonie, N.Y.