TO: CoSIDA MembershipFR: Justin Doherty, 2009-10 CoSIDA President; John Humenik, Executive Director; Barb Kowal, Director of External Affairs
RE: Recap of Board of Director and leadership group initiatives and activities for month of February
We are pleased to bring you the February actions and initiatives undertaken by the CoSIDA executive staff and Board of Directors. In addition to the molnth of February recap, we also are providing members with a listing of CoSIDA Membership Schedule & Deadlines (for March & April) in a PDF format at www.CoSIDA.com and in this newsletter. Click HERE for that PDF and look below for the full schedule of upcoming deadlines.
General Organizational
• Justin Doherty and
John Humenik held a conference call with
NCAA Director of Public and Media Relations Erik Christianson on Feb. 8th to finalize an April 15-16 joint CoSIDA/NCAA leadership meeting in Indianapolis. Over those two days, several CoSIDA Board and divisional leadership representatives will meet with appropriate NCAA staff to discuss various joint-based initiatives and continue to build pro-active leadership relationships to aid each organization in carrying out strategic objectives.
• CoSIDA Secretary/E-Digest editor Jeff Hodges continued to work with the officers on making needed revisions relative to the constitution. He finalized a third full draft in that regard for full Board for final review and input. When that process is completed with the Board, Jeff will post the proposed amendment revisions/amendments on www.CoSIDA.com in the spring for membership review prior to those revisions being voted on at the San Francisco Convention on July 7th.
Representation at Events
•
John Humenik represented CoSIDA at the
NACDA Mid-Year Conference Affiliates Day in Marco Island on Feb. 1. Over the course of that day, CoSIDA, along with all of the other organizations listed below, had the opportunity to provide an update on respective organizational and professional matters.
In addition to Humenik, the following Presidents/Executive Directors for the following organizations participated: Minority Opportunities Athletics Assoc. (MOAA), Division I-A Athletic Directors Assoc. (DI-A ADA), Football Championship Subdivision Athletic Directors Assoc. (FCS ADA), Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Assoc. (DI- AAA ADA), Division II Athletic Directors Assoc. (DII ADA), Division III Athletic Directors Assoc. (DIII ADA), National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), National Center for Spectator Sport Safety and Security (NC4S), College Athletics Business Management Assoc. CABMA), National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA) , National Association of Athletic Development Directors (NAADD), Collegiate Event and Facility Management Assoc. (CEFMA), International Collegiate Licensing Association (ICLA) , National Association of Two Year College Athletic Administrators (NATYAA) and National Association for Athletics Compliance (NAAC).
Over the course of the NACDA Mid-Year Conference Humenik visited one-on-one with the vast majority of the Presidents/Chairs/Executive Directors for the organizations mentioned above. In all cases he:
1. sought input on how CoSIDA might work better with those organizations and visa- versa
2. asked their perceptions of CoSIDA and if those perceptions were changing as a result of CoSIDA being more visible and pro-active.
Humenik reported to the Board on a Feb. 4th conference call that he was consistently told that CoSIDA’s clear efforts to be more visible and more pro-active within the intercollegiate community and its desire to want to be a resource for conversations within the community regarding communications-based issues and challenges was being received in a most favorable light and are much appreciated. The general message he was asked to pass along to the CoSIDA Board by various NACDA affiliates was “stay the course.”
•
John Humenik represented CoSIDA Feb. 4th on a conference call with the
National Communicators Group (PR Directors for all bowl subdivision conferences, the NCAA, BCS and CoSIDA)
Membership Webinars/Conference Calls
•
Mark Fratto (St. John’s), Bob Lowe (Greensboro College and Chair of CoSIDA’s New Media/Technology Committee), Philip Nelson (Senior VP for Strategic Development at NewTek) and
CoSIDA Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal presented a conference call/webinar on Feb. 9 titled
"Digital Technology in the Workplace: Alternatives to the Printed Guide."
The three discussed topics that revolved around overseeing and developing video and digital guide product launches and alternatives which are affordable for athletics departments over a wide-variety of budget allocations. Over 260 CoSIDA members partipated on this call. This call was recorded and can be accessed in CoSIDA’s archives by visiting:
http://cosida.com/news/2010/2/10/0210101102_3470.aspx.
•
Mark Fratto then worked with John Humenik to compile a email based document regarding this presentation and that was then provided to various divisional leadership President/Chairs within CoSIDA for their review and possible distribution to their respective membership groups.
•
Barb Kowal coordinated and moderated a membership conference call on Feb. 24th titled
“The Campus Pulse: Emerging Trends for Communications Professionals.” Presenters were
Malcolm Moran (Penn State Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society), Jeff Rubin (Syracuse University School of Information Studies- Assistant Professor, and Founder/President of Internet Consulting Services, a major CoSIDA corporate partner for several years as well as the organizations web administrator), and
Chris Taylor, a former SID who is now Ball State University’s Instructor of Telecommunications and coordinator of the immersive learning program – “Ball State Sports Link”. A total of 112 participated on this call.
In addition,
CoSIDA corporate partner ASAP Sports provided - free of charge - to the membership a Fast
Scripts transcript of the 45-minute presentation, and that Fast
Scripts was emailed to each CoSIDA member on Feb. 26. The audio replay and FastScripts transcript of this presentation can be accessed here:
http://cosida.com/news/2010/2/24/0224100228_6258.aspx•
John Humenik is finalizing plans with Greg Aiello- VP of Communications for the NFL- to have a May CoSIDA membership conference call in which several NFL PR Directors will discuss how they are trying to deal with several communications-based issues that many in CoSIDA’s membership are, or will be, also facing. This upcoming joint conference call was one of the things that resulted from a meeting John and Greg had in New York in December that included a discussion with regard to how the NFL could better provide its PR expertise to CoSIDA’s members.
•
Barb Kowal and John Humenik continue to have discussions with
FOX Sports Interactive about a potential April conference call/webinar that will likely revolve around the topics/issues associated with “Fan Generation and Retention.” FOX Sports Interactive is a major CoSIDA sponsor for the 2009-10 year
Divisional Initiatives
• The
College Division Management Advisory Committee, chaired by Eric McDowell (Union College), held a conference call on Feb 3rd. Eric,
Bill Wagner (DePauw) and Rich Herman (Clarion), Presidents of DII and DIII-SIDA, respectively, reviewed their trip to the NCAA convention in mid January and specific programming for this membership group for the upcoming convention in San Francisco was discussed. The group started to discuss possible names that they could forward to the Nominating Committee for openings on the 2010-11 CoSIDA Board of Directors as well for nominations for “Specials Awards” to be presented at the convention.
• On a Feb. 4th conference call with the
National Communicators Group (PR Directors for FBS conferences, NCAA, CoSIDA, BCS),
John Humenik asked
Erik Christianson of the NCAA the following: would it be appropriate, in light of the NCAA D1 Legislation Council’s decision in January at the NCAA Convention, to delay a final decision on proposed “printed media guide” legislation due to a desire to seek more membership feedback on this topic, and for CoSIDA’s leadership to present the “pro/con analysis ” that it did in this regard for the DI Recruiting Cabinet last May-June?
(Humenik was then asked to attend the June Cabinet discussion to discuss and review the analysis). On Feb. 10, Christianson indicated that
Steve Mallonee and Lynn Holzman, NCAA staff liaisons to the DI Legislative Council, felt that this would be appropriate and they would include that “pro/con analysis” with documents provided to that Council as it related to gathered feedback from DI membership. Humenik provided that document which had been produced with input from
CoSIDA’s University Division Management Advisory Committee (chaired by Charles Bloom of the SEC) which has one rep from each of the DI conferences and the D1 reps from the CoSIDA Board.
• As stated above,
John Humenik worked with
Mark Fratto on an email presentation following the Feb. 9th conference call/webinar that dealt with “Alternatives to Printed Guides.” On February 10, Humenik distributed this presentation to various divisional organization leadership Presidents/Chairs within CoSIDA (DII-SIDA, DIII-SIDA, NAIA-SIDA, University Division Management Advisory Committee, the National Communicators Group – the Conference PR Directors for FBS, NCAA, BCS, and CoSIDA’s Senior Athletic Communicators Council). He asked that they review and perhaps then distribute to respective membership. The
NAIA (Chad Waller) was particularly pro-active in this regard as he sent this presentation to all Athletic Directors, Conference Commissioners and Sports Information Directors throughout that divisional group.
• On February 23rd,
John Humenik, Eric McDowell (Union), Chair of the College Division Management Advisory Committee, and Rich Herman (Clarion), President of DII-SIDA, represented CoSIDA on a conference call coordinated by
Mike Racy, the NCAAA VP for Division II. Also participating were
Eric Schoh, VP for DII Athletic Directors Association , Bob Fortosis (DII Management Council) and
David Pickle of the NCAA.
This meeting was a result of a Jan. 13th meeting that Humenik, Herman and McDowell had with Mike Racy in Atlanta at the NCAA Convention. At the Convention, it was agreed that in order to further advance the DII branding initiative “I Choose DII” , as well as help the division’s leadership groups deal with communications-based issues and challenges, it was important that the DII-SIDA leadership be more directly involved with such strategic discussions.
Summary of Feb. 23rd call: There was a commitment by all these groups to jointly work in a proactive nature to advance DII communications based initiatives. All of the management groups acknowledged the key role that DII-SIDA needed to play moving forward. Approved issues during the call:
1. Making the Board of DII-SIDA a strategic advisory group to other DII leadership groups when appropriate
2. Add a rep from the DII Conference Commissioners to this particular discussion group
3. Plans are now in the works for another joint call of this group for late March/early April.
3. Short term,
Rich Hermann was asked by Mike Racy to convene the DII-SIDA Board to review/compile a checklist of things that communications directors should consider doing at the campus level with regard to carrying out aspects of the “I Choose DII” campaign. Rich is to present this to Mike by late March.
4. Long term,
Mike Racy asked Rich Hermann to have the DII-SIDA Board develop a communications model “to tell and execute the DII story” that can be used by AD’s/SID’s at the DII level that would mirror a similar model developed by the DII AD Association.
5. Mike Racy also indicated that based on how well the Jan. 13th meeting and the Feb. 23rd meetings have gone with the CoSIDA/DII-SIDA leadership, he would like to come to our San Francisco Convention, along with Eric Schoh from DII- ADA and Bob Fortosis from DII Management Council, to jointly discuss NCAA DII communications initiatives moving forward. This presentation was set for the afternoon of July 6th in San Francisco.
• The
University Division Management Advisory Committee, chaired by Charles Bloom (Southeastern Conference), held a conference call on Feb. 24th. The UDMAC currently is composed of one representative from each of the D1 conferences. Among the topics discussed:
1. Ideas for specific University Division (UD) programming at the San Francisco Convention
2. Update with regard to proposals as they relate to "printed guides" (vote by D1 Legislative Council to take place in April on this)
3. The possible formation of three specific leadership groups within the UD Management Advisory Committee umbrella, divided into FBS-SIDA, FCS-SIDA and D1-AAA SIDA. Each of those SIDA groups would have a Board, consisting of a rep from each conference within that specific divisional structure, and a President would be determined.
This structure would then more closely mirror the College Division Management Advisory Committee umbrella which includes DII-SIDA, DIII-SIDA and NAIA-SIDA. John Humenik relayed the success that the joint CoSIDA Board/ CDMAC management concept has played, especially with regard to DII-SIDA and DIII-SIDA building significantly stronger and more productive relationships with their respective divisional AD, Conference Commissioner group and the NCAA national staff. Humenik expressed that success was a strong indicator of how "divisional specific SIDA organizations" within CoSIDA can be significantly more productive in advancing overall CoSIDA and divisional specific strategic objectives. A strong sentiment was expressed that this proposed UDMAC restructuring would enable each of those three potential new DI -SIDA leadership groups to more effectively work with the CoSIDA Executive Director and Board in building better overall and divisional strategic relationships with the Athletic Directors Associations at the FBS, FCS and DI-AAA divisional levels. It was determined that Bloom and Humenik would work to define and advance this organization structure proposal for further review by the UDMAC group.
•
A committee of DI Communications Directors (Board members Justin Doherty, Charles Bloom, Nick Joos and Joe Browning) are working to have another conference call with the
D1 Amateurism Cabinet. On January 16th that CoSIDA group participated in a teleconference with the DI Amateurism Cabinet and provided input to that Cabinet which is currently evaluating, and then determining, a specific list of things that institutions at the DI level can and cannot do as it specifically relates to the use(s) of a student-athlete’s likeness. That January call came about via a direct request in November by John Humenik and Justin Doherty when this Cabinet announced that they would be coordinating this discussion. That January 16th call went very well and resulted in Rachel Newman, the NCAA staff liaison to the DI Amateurism Cabinet, sending a letter to this CoSIDA group requesting the opportunity for additional conferences on this matter. She said at that time, “Yesterday's discussion validated the importance of having CoSIDA provide feedback/input throughout this process and we look forward to a continued partnership in that regard.”
• J
ohn Humenik and Justin Doherty continued to work with
Petrina Long (UCLA), Chair of the Division I Recruiting Cabinet, as it relates to CoSIDA continuing to be a resource group to the Cabinet. Long informed John Humenik in November that she accepts CoSIDA’s recent request that it be provided the opportunity to participate in discussions that group will be having in the next few months about various recruiting-based issues, including “communications” with potential student-athletes. She indicated that after the Cabinet has narrowed its focus and has concrete models to work with, the Cabinet will seek feedback from various DI membership constituent groups, including CoSIDA.
Marketing/ PR Based
•
President Justin Doherty contributed a “CoSIDA Corner” column for the February issue of NACDA’s Athletics Administration Magazine, his fourth column in this regard since the start of the current academic year. He wrote about the development of CoSIDA’s new strategic logo and branding platform “CoSIDA- Strategic Communicators for College Athletics”. Each issue of NACDA’s monthly magazine is sent to over 10,000 university and athletics administrators and “CoSIDA Corner” provides a key opportunity for our organization’s voice, thoughts and expertise with these key constituents. Doherty’s most recent “CoSIDA Corner” column can be viewed here:
http://cosida.com/news/2010/1/28/0128101335_6068.aspx .
• On Feb. 15th, Barb Kowal provided the members of
CoSIDA’s Strategic Branding Committee a link to a draft of CoSIDA new website redesign concept. This redesign concept was developed by the staff of ICS - a major CoSIDA corporate partner and the organization’s website administrator. (This recently-established Strategic Branding Committee was put into place in October to finalize the organization’s new strategic branding logo and branding mission statement). All committee members were asked to provide their thoughts/ideas/concepts to Barb for potential development as she worked to put together a second full draft of the website redesign for a full committee conference call that took place on Feb. 23rd.
This committee includes Presidents of various organizations: Rich Herman (Clarion) of DII-SIDA, Bill Wagner (DePauw) of D III-SIDA, Sam Ghrist (Eastern Oregon) of NAIA-SIDA, Rob Knox (Kutztown State) of BC-SIDA, Ann King (Sage Colleges) of FAME; as well as 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 and Larry Doughtery (Temple), Nick Joos (Baylor) and John Paquette (Big East) of the CoSIDA Board. The plan is to have this full redesigned website launched in May/June so that the membership can review prior to the San Francisco Convention at which Barb hopes to gain further suggestions/input that might be implemented in July so that any such changes could be implemented by August. 1st.
• Over the month of February, a total of 20 CoSIDA-based articles/features appeared in the in NACDA’s
“Daily Review” e-mail blast and three appeared in the daily NCAA
Daily News Direct email blasts. Due to this effort, several thousands of university and athletics administrators are being exposed to professional and organizational news that primarily only appeared on the CoSIDA website in the past and was thus only viewed by our membership.
• Over the course of the month of February, 41 articles or feature stories were posted on our organizational website (www.CoSIDA.com); there were 141 Twitter postings on CoSIDA’s Twitter page (www.twitter.com/cosidanews), with each post linking to a article/feature/commentary/breaking news stories pertinent to collegiate athletic PR professionals.
• Eric McDowell was contacted on Feb. 4 by
Maricela Shukie of the NCAA Educational Affairs Office regarding a conversation she had with student-athletes from the National Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) group that Eric had visited with at the January NCAA Convention in Atlanta. On the Feb. 4th call, Eric provided Shukie with ways that SAAC can help SIDs on their campuses and vice versa. Based on that conversation, she indicated to McDowell that she work to have further conversation between SAAC and CoSIDA on this matter. On Feb. 22, McDowell was then contacted by the NCAA representative for the national SAAC and was invited to join them on their next national conference call (April 6). McDowell is now working with the CoSIDA Board to put together a presentation to educate SAAC students about the value of the SID and how the SID can assist them, and vice versa. It was further indicated to Eric that this group is interested in developing a relationship with our profession that could lead to a presentation to the SAAC students at their meetings at the annual NCAA convention.
Committee Based
• Several CoSIDA committee chairs participated on a Board of Directors conference call on Feb. 4th to provide an update on progress/status as it relates to the specific goals and objectives that they provided for their respective committees this past August. This was the first time that chairs were asked to provide a “mid-year” update on their committee activities. In the past, this update was provided only at the end of each year. The Board is hopeful that this “mid- year update” will result in better communications and productivity within the committee structure.
• John Humenik and Lawrence Fan (San Jose State), Chair of the Job Seekers Committee, are working with Greg Aiello, VP- Communications for the NFL- to put together, via the NFL office and its teams, a list of various internships that would be available in PR/Communications throughout the NFL heading into the 2010 season. This came joint effort came about as a result of a discussions Humenik and Aiello had in New York in December on ways that CoSIDA could aid the NFL for their sponsorship support of CoSIDA over the years. The plan is for Lawrence Fan to have this list compiled via the NFL office/teams by early March for distribution to our membership.
• 3rd VP Tom DiCamillo (Central Arizona College), along with Tam Flarup (Wisconsin) of the Special Awards Committee, are coordinating the selection processes for CoSIDA Hall of Fame and other special awards to be presented at the CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco this July. The nomination online process has been sent to CoSIDA’s membership for nominations. The entire nomination process is now completed online at:
http://cosida.com/news/2010/2/4/0204104900_8015.aspx. MARCH 2nd IS THE FINAL DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS FOR ALL CoSIDA SPECIAL AWARDS AND HALL OF FAME.
• Bob Noss (Wright State), Chair of the Ethics Committee, provided Justin Doherty a first draft of a rewrite and updated version of CoSIDA’s Code of Ethics document. All members of the Board of Directors were asked to review and provide their thoughts relative to the first full draft. On a Feb. 4th BOD conference call,
Bob Noss, Dave Reed (Colorado College and Board liaison with the Ethics Committee) and Secretary Jeff Hodges, who coordinated the Board feedback on this draft, discussed these suggested changes. On Feb. 10th Jeff provided Bob with the Board’s final suggested revisions for that committee’s review. When this document is approved by the Board it will then be presented to the entire membership.
Fund Raising-Sponsorships
• Over the course of the month of February the following organizations made sponsorship pledges for the 2010 convention/2010-11 academic fiscal year in support of CoSIDA; NCAA ($17,500), CBS College Sports Network ($12,500), Sports Systems, Inc. ($7500), National Football League ($7500), Rose Bowl Game ($5000), Allstate Sugar Bowl ($5000), USA Hockey ($2000), Wuerffel Trophy ($1000), Football Writers Association of America ($750) and Good Karma Broadcasting ($500). Several members of the Board are directly working with dozens of other organizations/firms seeking renewals of sponsorships or encouraging them to join our overall family of sponsors for the 2010 convention and/or 2010-11 academic year. CoSIDA’s total sponsors number over 40 for this current fiscal year.
Convention Matters
• Dave Wohlhueter, Barb Kowal and John Humenik worked with
Brian Binette of Sports Systems, Inc. to finalize the online registration process that has been put into place for the San Francisco Convention. That system will be operational in the first week of March.
• Barb Kowal worked with the staff at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis to establish a CoSIDA Passkey hotel reservation link for room reservations (just $129 per night). That CoSIDA online Passkey room reservation system will be available in the first week of March.
• First VP Larry Dougherty provided to the officers on Feb. 15th a first draft of the general schedule for the San Francisco Convention. Sunday, July 4th will be dominated by committee and divisional-based meetings with the primary social event being a luncheon-based reception conducted in the Exhibitor Hall.
Monday, July 5th, will be themed around “Best Practices and Solutions” and ESPN will hold their annual reception later that day.
Tuesday July 6th has been themed “Strategic Communications Day” with the day being capped by a
Hall of Fame Gala event that evening which will induct the 2010 Academic All-America Hall of Fame and CoSIDA Hall of Fame classes. On July 7th, the theme is “Digital Summit Day” and the convention will close later that afternoon/evening with a
“Farewell Happy Hour Reception.” The convention schedule, which will continue to be updated as more specific panel sessions and meetings are finalized can be accessed by going to CoSIDA.com and clicking the convention central logo on the front page.
• FOX, ESPN and CBS have all agreed to provide a representative to participate in a panel discussion at the convention’s “Digital Summit Day” on Wednesday, July 7th. Those representatives will focus on a topic dealing with “Where is television and the TV based mediums heading in the next five years.”
• Committee chairs, conference PR Directors and Presidents of CoSIDA affiliated groups that are interested in putting together specific meetings at the convention in San Francisco should send an email in that regard to both 1st VP Larry Dougherty (
larrydoc@temple.edu) and Barb Kowal (
barbkowal@cosida.com). Please indicate the date you would like to hold such a meeting (July 4-5), the time and the likely size of your group. Larry and Barb will then work with CoSIDA’s master meeting room space schedule to try and accommodate your request.
These requests should be provided no later than May 1.
Survey Related
• On Feb. 17th Dr.
Heather Barber of the Univ. of New Hampshire provided John Humenik a first-draft of an executive summary of a CoSIDA membership-wide survey which she and her staff at UNH coordinated last April. Over 800 members of our organization participated in the project. There was membership-wide and divisional specific data collection which included a professional background questionnaire and two questionnaires examining work-related pressures that are being experienced by sports information/communications personnel. Humenik provided this draft to Justin Doherty, Nick Joos (who as President in April of 2009 worked with the UNH staff on this survey project) and Barb Kowal.
Barber indicated that she anticipated being in a position to provide a final executive summary at some point in May after she presents the results of this research project to the College Sports Research Conference which will be held at the Univ. of North Carolina in late April. In the meantime, she asked Humenik, Doherty, Joos and Kowal to review the current draft and provide some thoughts as to what are the best ways to eventually present this material to the full Board and then membership. She also indicated at this time that she would be willing to participate on one of our Board conference calls to review/discuss this survey and help us interpret and present the data in a useful way.
Academic All-America Matters
• A conference call was conducted on Feb. 9th to choose the 2010 Academic All-America Hall of Fame Induction Class. Dick Enberg is in the processing directly contacting each of those selected former student-athletes and making them aware of their selection. Dick will inform each of them of a deadline date of March 15th to say yes/no in terms of their ability to come to San Francisco and accept the award in person at CoSIDA’s Hall of Fame Gala on July 6th. If someone cannot make this event, the committee will then go to its list of selected alternates to fill any opening.
•
Executive Director John Humenik continues to work with ESPN representatives to work out details for a one-year contract extension as it relates to the Academic All-America program. ESPN has agreed to extend the current contract, which was schedule to expire June 30th, for one additional year at the same terms for the “teams program” rights. It has, however, exercised its right of first refusal and has decided to not incorporate rights for the Academic All-America Hall of Fame into that contract. As such, CoSIDA once again exclusively holds the sole rights to the AAA Hall of Fame and Humenik has begun the process of seeking a marketing firm to represent CoSIDA in its efforts to attract a corporate partner for this specific AAA property right.
• The Board and the leadership of the Academic All-America Committee want to remind all of its members that CoSIDA’s “Academic All-America” mark is federally registered. As such, all CoSIDA members must help the Board and AAA Committee monitor the wrongful use of this registered mark. If you see any other organizations, including coaches associations, using this registered mark, please contact AAA Chair Dick Lipe (
rlipe@bentley.edu) and CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik
(jhumenik@bellsouth.net) right away. We will then have our legal counsel, Collegiate Images, follow-up with a letter regarding inappropriate infringement of our federally registered mark and they will be asked to “cease and desist” from future use of that mark.
We also ask that information and communications directors be careful in their personal use of the “Academic All-America” mark. Several times over the course of the year we find that our own membership is using “Academic All-America” in releases that they prepare with regard to student-athletes receiving awards for academic achievement from other organizations when in fact those organizations refer to their awards as “All-Academic”, “Scholar- Athlete”, “Academic All-Star”, etc. We ask that our own membership be cognizant of ONLY using “Academic All-America” in relation to CoSIDA’s program. It should not be used with any other program. There are no exceptions.
Upcoming Membership Nomination & Contest Deadlines
• Monday, March 1-Thursday, April 15
Submission period for the 2010 College Sports Media Awards (CSMA), the annual competition recognizing outstanding college sports video productions from campuses around the country, and the staff that made them possible. Entries will be accepted through an online form available on the CSMA Website beginning March 1 and will be accepted through April 15, 2010.
More information: http://csvsummit.com/college-sports-media-awards/
• Tuesday, March 2
2010 CoSIDA Special Awards deadline for nominations due for ALL 2010 CoSIDA awards which will be presented at the annual San Francisco Convention in July. Nominate online:
http://www.cosida.com/Awards/index.aspx
• Tuesday, March 30
CoSIDA Publications Contest submission deadlines for: Baseball, Men’s Golf, Women’s Golf, Lacrosse (M/W), Softball, Men’s Track & Field, Women’s Track & Field and Softball Guides; and Single Sport Programs.
See http://cosida.com/contests.aspx for forms and details.
• Tuesday, April 6-Tuesday, April 20
Baseball & Softball nomination form for ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America? All-District available online. Last day to nominate: April 20. See
: http://www.cosida.com/Awards/allamerica.aspx
• Tuesday, April 13
CoSIDA Scholarship: Phil Langan Graduate Internship Grant deadline
The Grant: To assist member institution sports information offices with funds to support the addition of graduate internships. There is one grant of $10,000 awarded annually for a 10-month appointment. For nomination form, go to: http://
cosida.com/news/2009/12/14/1214095958_611.aspx
• Tuesday, April 20
CoSIDA Scholarship: $5,000 Wylie Smith Scholarship and $5,000 CoSIDA Scholarship deadlines
The Scholarships: Designed to assist outstanding students in sports information offices who have expressed an interest in pursuing a career in collegiate sports information.
Nomination forms at: http://cosida.com/news/2009/12/14/1214095958_611.aspx
Please Note:
If you have any article or feature ideas, submissions or suggestions for the upcoming issues of the monthly CoSIDA E-Digest, please contact Jeff Hodges, Digest editor
(sportsInformation@una.edu); if you have suggestions for CoSIDA.com content or wish to contribute to our website, please contact Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of External Affairs (
barbkowal@cosida.com).
Thank you for taking the time to read our monthly newsletter. Please do not hesitate to contact any member of the Board of Directors or CoSIDA staff members if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions for our organization.
Justin Doherty, University of Wisconsin
2010 CoSIDA President
jmd@athletics.wisc.edu
John Humenik
CoSIDA Executive Director
jhumenik@bellsouth.net
Barb Kowal
CoSIDA Director of External Affairs
barbkowal@cosida.com