CoSIDA Central: CoSIDA Blog from the NCAA Convention (DAY TWO, Jan. 14)
This week in Atlanta, leading members of CoSIDA are attending the 2010 NCAA Convention to meet with various NCAA leaders to assist the profession and develop relationships within the divisional structure. CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik is attending and joining him are Rich Herman (Clarion), the President of DII-SIDA, Bill Wagner (Depauw), the President of DIII-SIDA, and Eric McDowell (Union College-NY), Chair of the College Division Management Advisory Committee. John arrived Tuesday, Rich and Eric came in Wednesday and Bill arrived Thursday.
From Wednesday through Friday, Rich, Bill and Eric are providing a blog to the membership to talk about their experiences during the convention. Eric writes the blog at the conclusion of each day.
Here is Eric’s second entry (for Thursday, January 14):
Hi folks, thanks for reading the blog, and tomorrow we will have one more to wrap up our experiences.
Hey, I bet you didn’t know these interesting facts.
• If Facebook was a country…it would have the third largest population in the world.
• Last year, 142 printed newspapers ceased publication, and 30,000 jobs were lost.
• On a daily basis, 4.1 billion text messages are sent.
These facts were relayed to start a panel entitled “Emerging Online Trends…” and the panelists discussed issues very familiar to our profession. To print or not to print media guides, video webstreaming, Twitter, Facebook.
The audience was provided reasons to use social media, including: To generate fan participation and discussion; create relationships among fans and athletes, engage alumni, and boost traffic to the team website.
Tips to consider: be exclusive (things you only get in the new media site), be engaging, be historical.
At the Q&A session following the presentation, I took to the floor and stated that when these audience members go back and mention to their SID's that these ideas should be implemented, they should understand that SID's can’t learn how to do these things on their campuses. But, they CAN learn from colleagues and panels at our annual national convention. Hopefully, we will see some new faces from these schools come and bring new media education back to their institutions after this summer in San Francisco.
The Student Athlete Advisory Committees (SAAC) on each campus features remarkable young men and women who are devoted and talented and successful in the playing arena and in the community. Can you imagine the type of student-athletes who represent the national SAAC committees for Division I, II and III? I made a point to meet Abby Gearhart, a volleyball player with Pitt-Johnstown. She is featured in the promotional video for NCAA Division II. She was engaging and excited about her future, but also understood the value of the SID and how the SID can work with the SAAC Committee to find out about the student’s activities off the court. She has a bright future and hopefully next year, an SID can meet with the various NCAA SAAC groups to discuss how the SID can assist them and also how they can assist us in finding out more about their activities and volunteer services.
Those of you who read yesterday’s blog know that we had an excellent private meeting with Mike Racy, the NCAA Vice President for Division II. Today, he made a point to mention to us that he discussed our meeting and offer of involvement and support to the Presidents’ Council, and how enthusiastic they were to include members of our profession in assisting them in their message and mission. Needless to say, we were thrilled to hear this news and excited about the future.
John (Humenik) and Rich (Herman) spoke to the Athletic Directors Association for Division II, and Bill (Wagner) and I joined them. The offer to assist and work with this group was extended, and well received. We appreciated the fact that they gave us the time to drop in on their meeting and allow us to offer suggestions and thoughts for a relationship with this group.
It is always enjoyable to see an old friend, and it was a pleasure to catch up with Patrick Guillen, the Director of Athletics at Cal State Dominguez Hills. We saw Pat during a reception for Athletic Directors, an event we were invited to for networking. I knew Pat when he was the SID there and I was at Cal Poly, and he has served his institution in a variety of capacities.
As we introduced John, Rich and Bill, we were so thankful for Pat’s offer to join us in our outreach efforts. As a former SID, Pat understands what we are attempting to do for our profession, and his comments of “anything I can do” rang strong. We hope he can join us in future panels to talk about the value of the SID and his experience from both ends of the table.
Also at that meeting, we visited with Eric Schoh of Wayne State. Eric’s leadership with the Division II A.D.’s and his support of our cooperative initiatives are very much appreciated. Eric joins Rich on monthly calls that have proven to be very valuable.
We wrapped up the day with a final visit with Erik Christianson, NCAA PR Director. We thanked him for his efforts in having us here, and we updated him about our experiences.
This is only the beginning of working closely with Erik; and in future conference calls, there will be some that will include Erik or a member of his staff to keep us updated on initiatives and allow him and his department to be updated on our happenings. This is currently happening with the my counterpart, Charles Bloom, and his University Division Management Advisory Committee.
Tomorrow, before we depart, Erik will provide me with his thoughts for the final blog.
Friday, Bill is very excited about our meetings with Division III leadership, and especially the announcement of the Division III branding initiative. Some of us were fortunate to be involved in Dan Dutcher’s conference call (Dan is the Div. III V.P. for the NCAA), a call that discussed the promotion of Division III. Thanks to Bill’s efforts, he was invited by Dan to attend this convention and be here throughout the Division III meetings Friday.
In the morning, we will meet with the NCAA Director of Championships, Roberta Page. Later, we will visit with Jim Naumovich, the Commissioner of the Great Lakes Valley Conference and President of the Division II Conference Commissioners. We will also visit with Dan after his important session.
I’ll update you from an airport on the way home, with the final blog, before my big and exciting Saturday with a doubleheader basketball day followed by a televised men’s hockey game against our arch rival, RPI. There is a lot to look forward to, friends, for our profession, and for our student-athletes.