This week in Atlanta, leading members of CoSIDA attended the 2010 NCAA Convention to meet with various NCAA leaders to assist the profession and develop relationships within the divisional structure.
Representing CoSIDA in the photo (L to R) were: Rich Herman (Clarion), DII-SIDA President; Eric McDowell (Union, NY), CoSIDA College Division Management Advisory Committee Chair; Bill Wagner (Depauw), DIII-SIDA President; and CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik. From Wednesday through Friday (Jan. 16-18), Rich, Bill and Eric provided a blog to the membership to talk about their experiences during the convention. Eric has written the blog at the conclusion of each day.Below is the final blog, written by McDowell,
with leading comments about CoSIDA's representation from
Erik Christianson,
NCAA Director of Public and Media Relations.
"CoSIDA leadership took advantage of their time this week at the NCAA Convention to continue to position its members as strategic communicators with key leaders.Conversations with Mike Racy, NCAA Division II vice president, and Dan Dutcher, NCAA Division III vice president, led to better connections with them. In turn, both vice presidents shared the good progress the divisions have made with CoSIDA with their presidents councils. Overall, this is a very positive result for CoSIDA as it continues to evolve as an organization, demonstrating that those working in athletics communications and sports information are and can be key influencers on their campuses, within their conferences and in the Association as a whole."
-- Erik Christianson, NCAA Director of Public and Media Relations
Friday (Jan. 15), our third and final day in Atlanta, started out with another productive and positive meeting. Joining us for coffee was the
NCAA Director of Championships, Roberta Page.
We had a provocative and informative conversation, and Roberta was extremely positive and offered her thoughts and suggestions in this session. Rich (Herman) brought up the discussion about score reporting. Some conferences are responsible for this, some are not, and thus some institutional SID's are then responsible. He brought up the thought of making something uniform, and that would include getting the various selection committees uniform as well with their dates for meeting each week.
The all-on-the-same-page theme was receptive and provided some very optimistic viewpoints about what could occur to make everyone’s job easier and less redundant in some way. We also discussed the roster limit size for the IMG publications produced for the NCAA Championships. I made it clear that IMG (previously Host) has done a marvelous job in producing high quality publications in very professional magazine format programs that impress at all levels. The concern, which has been discussed on our advisory committee calls, is leaving names off of rosters. We offered some solutions that we feel are realistic and Roberta was receptive to our thoughts on this matter as well. It was a pleasure to spend time with her and we look forward to continued relationships with communication to assist Roberta and her staff.
We were scheduled to meet with J
im Naumovich, the Commissioner of the Great Lakes Valley Conference and President of the Division II Conference Commissioners. Unfortunately a situation came up with one of his member schools and he cordially canceled early Friday morning.
The Division III branding initiative was introduced to the membership with a video that was crisp, colorful and effective with comments from administrators and student-athletes from all parts of the country.
The message: “Discover, Develop, Dedicate.” Each table featured a facilitator and we had a member of the
National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) lead our group. Bill (Wagner) and I were joined by an FAR [Faculty Athletic Representative], a provost, an AD and an Assistant AD.
I wish we had all day! It was so nice to spend time with such a diverse group that all came together with members who all have their hearts in serving the student-athlete. We talked about promotional opportunities on the campus, faculty meetings with athletic personnel and SAAC representatives, bullet points to provide to coaches to send the message when recruiting, copies of the video to admissions departments, tweaking the video at the end to customize it for our own campuses, and other areas to assist the students while bringing our common interests together. I think you can tell from my tone here how enjoyable our time together was for all of us.
As I departed the hotel, I could not help but think about the large presence in our thoughts of Dr. Myles Brand, who passed away this fall while serving as NCAA President. I first met Dr. Brand on Cape Cod a few years ago when he was visiting the ECAC Convention and Trade Show. We had a student-athlete who received a major honor and he made a point to visit and take photographs with her and other recipients. A few years later I suggested that CoSIDA invite Dr. Brand to be our keynote speaker at the CoSIDA Convention. He accepted our Board’s invitation and honored our membership as the first sitting NCAA President to address CoSIDA.
In January of 2008, the NCAA invited those of us on the CoSIDA Board to come to the headquarters and meet with many individuals from a wide variety of departments. Dr. Brand took time to visit with us as well. He talked to us about academic reform, APR data, higher education and commercialism issues, and many other topics. He also told us how we “play a key role” in collegiate athletics. I will never forget his words.
This week, a commemorative brochure with Dr. Brand’s memorable quotes and photographs was delivered to the rooms of each attendee.
The final words were a quote that indeed brings us all together…presidents, athletic directors, members of the faculty, and sports information directors. “In the end, it’s all about the student-athlete.”
Thanks to John, Bill and Rich for their excellent work for the membership this week, and thanks to CoSIDA Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal for posting the blog on our CoSIDA site each day and circulating them to the membership via email. A very special thanks again to NCAA Director of Public and Media Relations Erik Christianson for his pre-convention support and assistance in making our Convention trip possible, and for all his valuable time and insight during the Convention. Erik, we thank you for your friendship and support.
And, a special thank you for reading the blog this week. All the best to you, your students and your families.