College Sports Information Directors of America

TO: CoSIDA Membership
FR: 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 March

We are pleased to bring you the March actions and initiatives undertaken by the CoSIDA executive staff and Board of Directors.  We also are providing members with a listing of CoSIDA Membership Calendar & Deadlines (for April & May) in this newsletter. Click HERE for that deadline information in a PDF format, and look below for the full schedule of upcoming deadlines.

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Convention Matters

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• The 2010 CoSIDA Convention takes place July 4-7 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. We cordially invite all CoSIDA members and those interested in athletics PR/communications to attend our upcoming Convention where you will find innovative workshop programming and opportunities to network with colleagues and corporate partners in one of the finest cities in the world!

• Barb Kowal, Dave Wohlhueter and John Humenik worked with Brian Binette of Sports Systems (CoSIDA’s online registration provider) to finalize the online convention registration process that has been put into place for San Francisco. That system became operational on March 5th and can be accessed here: http://www.sportssystems.com/clients/cosida/.

Barb Kowal also worked with the staff at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis to provide a direct hotel reservation link for room reservations for San Francisco (just $129 per night). That link became operational on March 8th and you can reserve your room here: https://resweb.passkey.com/go/cosida2010 .

• First VP Larry Dougherty (Temple) continues to refine the general schedule and programming for the San Francisco convention.

- Sunday, July 4th will be dominated by committee and divisional-based meetings with the primary social event being a “Welcome Reception” conducted in the Exhibitor Hall beginning at noon.

- Monday, July 5th will be themed around “Best Practices and Solutions” and ESPN will hold their annual reception late afternoon/early evening.

- Tuesday July 6th has been themed “Strategic Communications Day” which includes a presentation by former White House Communications Director Ari Fleischer. The day will be 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.

- Wednesday, July 7th has been themed as “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 or via this link: http://www.cosida.com/news/2010/3/1/0301102744_4961.aspx

• Committee chairs, conference PR directors and Presidents of CoSIDA affiliated groups interested in putting together specific meetings at the convention in San Francisco should send an email in that regard to both 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 1st.

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Marketing/PR Based Initiatives

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• President Justin Doherty contributed a “CoSIDA Corner” column for the March issue of NACDA’s Athletics Administration Magazine, his fifth column in this regard since the start of the current academic year. He wrote about our upcoming convention and its importance to athletics departments/AD’s as it relates continuing education for their communications and information staff. 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 by here: http://cosida.com/news/2010/3/5/0305102946_1726.aspx .

• On March 5th Barb Kowal provided the members of CoSIDA’s recently established Strategic Branding Committee (a committee put into place in October to finalize the organization’s new strategic branding logo and branding mission statement) a link to a second draft of CoSIDA’s 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. All committee members were asked at that time to provide their thoughts/ideas/concepts to Barb for potential development as she worked to put together a third draft of the website redesign for full committee review which she then provided to the full group on March 17th. On March 30th she provided Justin Doherty with a specific timeline of planned actions over the next two months to ensure the launch of the new website no later than June 1st.

      The Strategic Branding 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)- 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) and Rod Williamson (Vanderbilt), Chair of Senior Athletic Communications Committee as well as Larry Dougherty (Temple), Nick Joos (Baylor) and John Paquette (Big East) of the CoSIDA Board. As mentioned above, it is the plan of this committee to have this full redesigned website launched by June 1 so that the membership can review prior to the San Francisco Convention at which time Barb hopes to gain further suggestions/input that might be implemented in July so that any such changes could be fully implemented by August 1st.

• Over the month of March, 30 CoSIDA-based stories appeared on NACDA’s Daily Review email distribution (a total of 23 email blasts for the month) and three on the NCAA News Direct daily e-mail blast. 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. In addition, articles on Division I Academic All-America men’s and women’s basketball performers playing in the NCAA Championship appeared on numerous basketball-specific websites.

• During the month of March, 39 articles were posted on our organizational website as well as 224 on CoSIDA’s Twitter page.

• Eric McDowell (Union), Chair of CoSIDA’s College Division Management Advisory Committee, has been invited by the NCAA to participate on a conference call on April 6th with the NCAA’s national Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SACC). As part of CoSIDA’s leadership group that attended the NCAA Convention in January, Eric held conversations with some students from SACC that also attended that event. On Feb. 4th Eric provided the NCAA rep that oversees this group (Maricela Shukie of the NCAA Educational Affairs Office) a list of specific ways that SAAC can help communications/information directors on their campuses and vice-versa and based on that conversation, she indicated to Eric that she wanted to look into a way for further dialogue on this matter between SAAC and CoSIDA. On Feb. 22nd Eric was then invited to visit with SACC on their next national conference call- April 6th. It was further indicated to Eric that this group is interested in developing a relationship with CoSIDA that could lead to a presentation to the SAAC students at their meetings at the annual NCAA convention.

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Continuing Education- Membership Webinars/Conference Calls

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• John Humenik is finalizing plans with Greg Aiello, VP of Communications for the NFL, to have a May membership conference call (likely either May 12 or 19th at this point) in which several PR Directors from the NFL will discuss with our interested membership how they are dealing with several communications-based issues that many in CoSIDA’s membership are, or will be, also facing. This forthcoming 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.

• John Humenik continues to have discussions with FOX Sports Interactive about a potential June conference call/webinar to revolve around the general topic of the importance of unique and interesting content as it relates to “Fan Generation and Retention,” and what a prominent cutting-edge news organization such as FOX Sports Interactive sees in the immediate future for this growing phenomena. FOX Sports Interactive is a major CoSIDA sponsor for the 2009-10 year.

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General Organizational Matters

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• On March 26, Secretary Jeff Hodges provided the Board of Directors another draft of the revised constitution that has been necessitated by various changes within the organization over the past two years. Once the Board approves this revised draft Jeff will make it available to the full membership via CoSIDA.com and it will be voted on at the annual business meeting at the convention on July 7.

• On March 25, Doug Walker (Alabama), CoSIDA 2nd VP, informed the Board that he will be resigning from the Board at the conclusion of the San Francisco convention due to personal and professional reasons.

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Divisional Initiative Based Matters

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• Justin Doherty and John Humenik have finalized with NCAA Director of Public and Media Relations Erik Christianson a series of joint CoSIDA/NCAA leadership meetings in Indianapolis on April 15-16. Several CoSIDA Board members (Justin Doherty, Larry Dougherty, Nick Joos, Barb Kowal, John Humenik) and divisional leadership representatives (Rich Herman- President of DII-SIDA, Bill Wagner- President of DIII-SIDA, Eric McDowell- Chair of the College Division Management Advisory Committee, Charles Bloom- Chair of the University Division Management Advisory Committee) will meet with appropriate NCAA staff over the course of those two days to discuss various joint-based initiatives and continue to build pro-active leadership relationships to aid each organization in carrying out strategic objectives.

• Charles Bloom, Chair of the University Management Advisory Committee (UDMAC), and John Humenik continued to refine a new organizational structure for that group that was discussed and approved in concept during a Feb. 24th conference call of the UDMAC leadership. Bloom and Humenik were at that time directed to put this new organizational structure concept into a more definite proposal for future review.
      
       The UDMAC currently is composed of one rep from each of the DI conferences with Charles as Chair. The newly discussed structure, which has primarily been proposed due to the success that the College Division Management Committee organizational concept in general, and the DII-SIDA and DIII-SIDA Boards especially, have had dealing directly with divisional AD, Conference Commissioner groups and NCAA VP’s in Indianapolis, was used as the basic blueprint.

         The College Division Management Advisory Committee (CDMAC) has an overall Chair and Executive Committee and acts as an “umbrella management group” that oversees and works with specific SIDA organizations in DII, DII and the NAIA. Many in the UDMAC group felt this structure better serves not only the CoSIDA Board in general in getting things done for the benefit of that membership group, but has also significantly improved the ability for these divisional SIDA groups to take a more prominent leadership role and deal more directly with other appropriate divisional leadership groups to advance strategic objectives. In short, the two-year CDMAC concept, which the CoSIDA Board proposed and adopted in June of 2008, has been viewed by all (Board and divisional leadership) as a win-win development.
 
        Based on that, the proposed changes for the UDMAC are as follows:
1. Results in the formation of three specific D1 management groups; FBS-SIDA, FCS-SIDA and D1AAA-SIDA Boards.

2. The UDMAC Executive Committee, chaired by Bloom, would be made up of the respective Presidents for each of those three Boards as well as perhaps DI representation from the CoSIDA Board and Executive Director.

3. The Football Bowl Subdivision -SIDA Board would be composed of one rep from each of the following conferences; Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West, Pacific-10 Conference, Southeastern Conference, Sun Belt, Western Athletic Conference, FBS Independents. That 12-person Board would be led by a President.

4. The Football Championship Subdivision Board would be composed of one representative from each of the following conferences; Big Sky, Big South, Colonial Athletic Association, Ivy League, Mid-Eastern Athletic, Missouri Valley, Northeast Conference, Ohio Valley, Patriot League, Southern, Southland, Southwestern Athletic Conference and FCS Independents. That 13-person Board would be led by a President.

5. The D1AAA- SIDA Board would be composed of one rep from each of the following conferences; America East, Atlantic 10, Atlantic Sun, Big West, Horizon, Metro Atlantic, Summit and West Coast Conference. That eight-person Board would be led by a President.

6. Each of the three D1-SIDA groups could hold specific divisional meetings as needed/warranted and if appropriate, the Chair of UDMAC could hold an overall joint conference call with all three Boards at one time. Chairs of each of the three SIDA groups would work with the UDMAC Chair and the President and Executive Director of the CoSIDA Board to seek to specifically build more significant working relationships with the respective AD and Conference Commissioner groups as well as appropriate NCAA divisional leadership in Indianapolis to advance appropriate discussions and strategic initiatives. That specific pro-active approach took place in the summer-fall of 2009 with DII-SIDA, DIII-SIDA, NAIA-SIDA and proved to be productive.

• John Humenik worked with President of DII-SIDA Rich Herman (Clarion) to arrange a conference call on April 9th with Mike Racy (VP for NCAA Division II) which would also include Eric McDowell (Union), Chair of CoSIDA’s College Division Management Advisory Committee, Eric Schoh, VP for DII Athletic Directors Association, and Bob Fortosis (DII Management Council).





• On March 23, Rich Herman (Clarion, President of DII-SIDA) conducted a conference call with Eric McDowell (Union), Chair of the College Division Management Advisory Committee, Greg Goings of Bowie State (Div. II-SIDA 1st VP) and Dennis Jezek of Barry (Div. II-SIDA 2nd VP). Rich provided that group with an update of several NCAA DII meetings that have taken place, and will in the near future. Rich also reviewed the positive relationship-building developing with Mike Racy (VP for DII at the NCAA) as well as a potential plan for the implementation of communication with the SIDs nationally for the “I Chose Division II” strategic branding plan. This group decided to schedule a conference call with the full DII-SIDA Board on March 31, a call that included Mike Racy and Eric Schoh.

             From that call, a plan was put into place that would have Rich Herman reaching out to the DII Conference Commissioners and DII-ADA groups to request that conferences to use some of the enhancement grant money provided to it by the NCAAto send their SIDs to the convention and to promote to the DII membership the all-important Convention session scheduled for Mike Racy’s presentation on July 6. Mike Racy agreed to help push this idea within the DII community. Due to the amount of things discussed, a follow-up call of the full DII-SIDA Board was scheduled for April 7th.

• President of DIII-SIDA Bill Wagner (DePauw) informed John Humenik on March 23rd that the NCAA DIII national staff had forwarded President Harris' (Chair of NCAA DIII President’s Council) memo about a video being able to be downloaded that discusses and presents the DIII new strategic branding identity campaign and it has now been sent out directly to the Division III SIDs via Mark Fleming (Moravian College). Bill made the point that SIDs hadn't been considered in the past with regard to these types of announcements and would usually receive the information from AD’s rather than from the national office. This development, in Bill’s opinion, represented growing recognition of DIII-SIDA’s increased involvement with the NCAA DIII staff over the past six months.

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Representation on National Conference Calls & at Events

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•  Executive Director John Humenik represented CoSIDA on a March 4th conference call with the National Communicators Group (PR Directors for all bowl subdivision conferences, the NCAA, BCS and CoSIDA). Humenik used this time to inform this leadership group of upcoming CoSIDA continuing education calls with FOX Sports Interactive and the NFL and he and Charles Bloom (SEC) also presented and discussed a proposed restructuring of CoSIDA’s University Division Management Advisory Committee which would have create the formation of three specific leadership groups within that umbrella; FBS-SIDA, FCS-SIDA and DIAAA-SIDA. Humenik also reviewed the upcoming convention in terms of major programming aspects and the general timeline and encouraged this group to play an important leadership/mentoring role that is needed by attending, and encouraging attendance within their respective conferences. A meeting of this group was planned for Indianapolis on April 2nd.

• John Humenik was extended an invitation to attend the annual meeting of ConSIDA (Conference PR Directors for all of the Division I conferences) which will be held in Indianapolis on April 3rd.

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Academic All-America Matters

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• On March 9th, John Humenik signed a contract addendum with ESPN for a one-year extension as it relates to the Academic All-America program. ESPN has agreed to extend the current contract, which was scheduled 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.

• Due to ESPN’s decision with regard to the contract extension mentioned above, 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. With that in mind, Humenik has held meetings with John VonStade, a senior VP at Sports Velocity and Entertainment in Stamford, CT with regard to that firm representing CoSIDA as its marketing agent for the purpose of attracting a corporate partner for those specific rights. VonStade was a key executive on the Millsport management team that worked in the late 1980’s with GTE and CoSIDA’s Academic All-America Committee, then chaired by Humenik, to form and advance the AAA Hall of Fame concept.
        
        At this point, Sports Velocity and Entertainment has agreed to insert the AAAHOF info into their general marketplace portfolio of assets. If a current, or new client, shows interest then Humenik will join the SV&E management team for more in-depth discussions with those interested parties in hopes of attracting a corporate partner to support and advance this part of CoSIDA’s overall AAA program.

• 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) immediately.
          
         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 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.

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Committee Based Initiatives

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• 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 meeting Humenik and Aiello had in New York in December that related to 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 April for distribution to our membership.

• 3rd VP Tom DiCamillo (Central Arizona College), along with Tam Flarup (Wisconsin) of the Special Awards Committee and CoSIDA Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal, are planning various administrative aspects as it relates the selection processes for the CoSIDA Hall of Fame and other special awards to be presented at the CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco this July.

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Fund Raising/Sponsorships

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 • Over the course of the month of March the following organizations made sponsorship pledges for the 2010 convention/2010-11 academic fiscal year in support of CoSIDA; Fiesta Bowl ($5000), Heisman Memorial Trophy ($5000), Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award ($5000), Sporting News ($1750), Disney Sports ($1000), Football Bowl Association ($1000), Southeastern Conference ($500) and Florida Citrus Sports ($500)/

• Several members of the Board of Directors 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 numbered over 40 for this current fiscal year.

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Survey Related

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• John Humenik continued to work with Joe Moore, a professor in the Communications Department at Central Missouri (who worked in that school’s SID office for 15 years), regarding a project/dissertation he is doing on “Earned Influence in College Sports PR: Why Do Some Have it and Others Don’t?” Joe was put in touch with Lawrence Fan (San Jose State, Chair of the Job Seekers Committee) and CoSIDA Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal to do some things with regard to reviewing “ job postings” over the last few years or so to review types of skills that employers/schools are seeking/emphasizing.

         Moore is also working with Humenik to put together a schedule for San Francisco convention as he wants to setup several “group” sittings to gain more survey input/background from Board and divisional leadership groups at that time. Plans are also being put into place to have Joe meet with the CoSIDA Board on July 3rd in San Francisco to discuss his project and its possible strategic benefits to our leadership groups moving forward.

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Upcoming Membership Nomination & Contest Deadlines

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• Now through 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, April 6-Tuesday, April 20
Baseball & Softball nomination forms for ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America All-District Teams available online. Nominations close April 20 at 6 pm (ET). 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 forms, go to: http://cosida.com/news/2010/3/9/0309101558_2428.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

• Tuesday, April 20-Tuesday, May 4
Men's and women's at-large nomination forms for ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America All-District Teams available online. Nominations close May 4 at 6 pm (ET). See: http://www.cosida.com/Awards/allamerica.aspx

Again, the term Academic All-America is a registered mark of CoSIDA and should only be used in reference to the CoSIDA-selected and ESPN the Magazine-sponsored teams. It is not proper to use Academic All-America in any other context. If you seed a release from a coaches’ association or another organization referring to their team as Academic All-America, please notify Executive Director John Humenik (jhumenik@bellsouth.net) or AAA Committee Chair Dick Lipe at Bentley University (rlipe@bentley.edu) for follow-up.

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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 and best of luck to all as the spring semester continues. 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.

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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