July 1, 2010
TO: CoSIDA Membership
FR: Justin Doherty-2009-10 CoSIDA President, John Humenik-Executive Director and Barb Kowal- Director of External Affairs
RE: Recap of CoSIDA Board of Directors and Divisional Leadership Initiatives for month of June
Best regards to each of you and we look forward to seeing many of you in a few days at the CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco. As we have done throughout this entire academic year, here is a monthly report for June on various CoSIDA related matters.
Directory Update Time!
• It’s time to make your updates for the 2010-11 CoSIDA E-Directory. This directory is one of the most useful resources, not only for our membership, but within all of collegiate athletics. Its accuracy is fully dependent on our membership and allied organizations verifying and/or updating contract information and making staff additions and deletions. Please take a few moments and have one person from your department go into the appropriate CoSIDA online system and update all directory items for your school or allied organization. Please complete this process no later than FRIDAY, JULY 23. This will best ensure that ALL information for your organization is fully updated. Go to CoSIDA.com and under the Membership heading, you will find this link: Update Your Directory Information at http://cosida.com/update/index.aspx .
Marketing/PR Based
• The newly redesigned CoSIDA.com website project was launched on June 22nd. The redesign project was coordinated by Director of External Affairs Barb Kowal with assistance from the CoSIDA Strategic Branding Committee and Board of Directors input. This redesign concept was developed by the staff SIDEARM Sports - a major CoSIDA corporate partner and the organization’s website administrator. The membership is asked to provide comments/ideas to Barb on this new design via email (barbkowal@cosida.com), and they will be considered as we use the month July to further refine the site. We plan to have the new site fully functional in August as we all get ready to kick off the next academic year.
• Barb Kowal, working with Executive Director John Humenik and CoSIDA President Justin Doherty, continued work on the first draft of a CoSIDA marketing/branding document. This initiative came about as a result of meetings CoSIDA leaders had with the NCAA Branding Department on April 15th in Indianapolis. The NCAA has done such documents for recent DII and DIII branding based initiatives and the NCAA and CoSIDA leadership jointly agreed that doing such a document was an important next step for CoSIDA as it seeks to further develop its strategic resource value and “brand” within the collegiate community - “CoSIDA- Strategic Communicators for College Athletics.” This project will be one of the things reviewed and discussed during Board of Director meetings in San Francisco.
• President Justin Doherty contributed his final monthly “CoSIDA Corner” column for the June issue of NACDA’s Athletics Administration Magazine, his eighth column in this regard since the start of the current academic year. Justin’s focus was “Communications channels- CoSIDA building key national relationships and partnerships the traditional ways”.
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.aspx?id=2689.
• Over the month of June, 41 CoSIDA-based stories appeared on NACDA’s Daily Review email blast (in a total of 21 daily email blasts for the month) and 10 on the NCAA Daily E-mail Blast. Additionally, CoSIDA had a presence with stories/features on NCAA.org’s main page for 24 the 30 days in June. 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.
• During the month of June , 43 articles/features/commentaries were posted on our organizational website (CoSIDA.com). In addition, the CoSIDA Twitter page (www.twitter.com/cosidanews) had 268 tweets/postings, all of
an informative nature with breaking news and timely topics for athletic communication professionals.
Academic All-America® Related
• Over the course of May and June several CoSIDA leadership groups [CoSIDA Board reps- Justin Doherty, Larry Dougherty, Tom DiCamillo, Nick Joos, John Humenik and Barb Kowal, DII-SIDA (Rich Herman), DIII-SIDA (Bill Wagner), College Division Management Advisory Committee (Eric McDowell), Academic All-America® Committee (Dick Lipe, Bernie Cafarelli, Mark Bechenbach, Dave Wrath Jim Seavey,] worked with Mike Racy, VP for NCAA Division II, and Dan Dutcher, VP for NCAA DIII, to discuss and refine a proposal that would result in a significant expansion of the Academic All-America® awards program at the College Division level. On June 28, CoSIDA and the NCAA Division II and III leadership groups in Indianapolis released the following statement in that regard:
Joint Statement from CoSIDA and NCAA DII and DIII Leadership Regarding Planned
Academic All-America® Program Expansion (release date: June 28th)
The leadership of CoSIDA and the NCAA Division II and Division III are most pleased to jointly announce that they have agreed in principle to fully pursue the creation of separate Academic All-America® award programs for those specific NCAA divisions as a major component of a joint desire to more directly acknowledge and recognize the academic achievement of student-athletes in those respective divisions.
The proposed program, which would begin with the start of the 2011-12 academic year, would result in CoSIDA’s current “College Division Academic All-America®” program growing from one award program to three. That current “College Division Academic All-America®” award program includes qualified student-athletes from all non- Division I schools. This agreement in principle would establish specific NCAA Division II and Division III Academic All-America® programs as well as a third college division program- yet to be named- that would encompass NAIA/Canadian/two-year institutions/other small colleges.
Full implementation of the agreement is contingent upon final approval of the governance structures in both NCAA Divisions II and III, which is expected during the next several months. NCAA divisional commitments would include significant funding to support the administration of the program expansion. Meanwhile, CoSIDA’s Academic All-America® Committee, working in full conjunction with the leadership of CoSIDA’s college division leadership groups, will move forward with planning and finalizing various administrative and management aspects of this significant expansion.
Both leadership groups understand that many details have to be resolved, but both groups are fully committed to making this expansion happen by the start of the 2011-12 academic year.
Also view this statement on CoSIDA.com: http://cosida.com/news.aspx?id=2736
Representing the Organization
• John Humenik joined Erik Christianson and Bob Williams of the NCAA for a joint presentation to the SEC Communications Directors on June 2nd in Destin, FL
• Eric McDowell (Union College), Chair of CoSIDA’s College Division Management Advisory Committee, represented CoSIDA at the annual Canadian InterUniversity Sports (CIS) conference, June 7-8, which was held outside of Montreal.
• Barb Kowal, CoSIDA’s Director of External Affairs, participated in a panel discussion regarding CoSIDA related matters at the annual ECAC-SIDA Convention held on June 10th in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. She was joined at that session by CoSIDA 1st VP Larry Dougherty of Temple, incoming President for 2010-11, and John Paquette of the Big East Conference, an At-Large member of the CoSIDA Board.
• John Humenik represented CoSIDA at the annual NACDA convention in Anaheim on June 21-24th.
Divisional Based Initiatives
• On June 11, Executive Director John Humenik received an invitation from Dutch Baughman, Executive Director of the Division I-A Athletic Directors Association, for CoSIDA to become part of the CHAMPS National Board of Advisors, one of the D1-A Athletic Directors Association’s national programs. In addition to that invitation, CoSIDA was also asked at that time to also become a part of a national task force within that Board of Advisors that, ” Will focus on and discuss the key issues impacting student-athletes, establish guidance on those issues, and present that broader perspective to the Div. I-A Athletics Directors.” On June 15th Justin Doherty appointed current CoSIDA officer Charles Bloom (SEC) to represent our organization on this national advisory board.
• Bill Wagner (DePauw), President of DIII-SIDA, is working with Dan Dutcher, NCAA VP for DIII, to schedule a full CoSIDA DIII membership conference call for mid-to-late July/ early August so that Dan can review the NCAA DIII branding identity initiative with that entire group. Dan will be making this presentation at the convention in San Francisco on July 6th, but the conference call in July will update DIII members not able to attend the San Francisco workshop.
• On June 11, a joint letter from Rich Herman (Clarion), President of DII-SIDA, CoSIDA Executive Director John Humenik, Ed Matejkovic (President of DII-Athletic Directors Association), and Eric Schoh (VP for DII-ADA and that group’s liaison with CoSIDA) sent a letter, with NACDA’s assistance, to all DII Athletic Directors in the nation. The letter reviewed various things that DII-SIDA has done this past year with DII-ADA, DII Conference Commissioners and NCAA DII national office in Indianapolis.
It specifically discussed the DII-SIDA Board working with Mike Racy, NCAA VP for DII, to advance DII marketing and branding initiatives and that a “Branding Toolkit” has been developed and will be introduced at the CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco on July 6. Based on that, this group asked the AD’s, if the possibility still exist financially, to have someone from the school’s athletics communications department attend the convention. The letter also emphasized the importance of the convention as it relates to “continuing education training and professional development.” In that regard, the letter also reviewed efforts that have jointly been made with the NCAA and the Conference Commissioners to use some grant money this, and in the future, to assist communications and information directors at the DII attend the CoSIDA convention as part of the important need for continuing education and professional development.
• Mike Racy, NCAA VP for DII, is trying to finalize a meeting in Indianapolis for late August that would include Rich Herman, John Humenik, Bob Fortosis of DII Management Council and Fran Reidy of DII- ADA. A member of the DII Conference Commissioners group might also participate. The focus of the one day meeting would be communications-based initiatives for the 2010-11 year that all of these groups would jointly work together on.
• Over the course of the month John Humenik prepared a report that reviewed CoSIDA Board of Directors and divisional SIDA leadership initiatives over the course 2009-10 year. This was provided to PR Directors at various DI conferences that in turn passed it along to their league colleagues. Rod Williamson (Vanderbilt), Chair of the SACC (Senior Athletic Communicators Council) sent it to that membership group. It was also provided to Rich Herman, President of DII-SIDA, and Bill Wagner, President of DIII-SIDA, who then sent it to their respective Board leadership and divisional memberships. The document also went to the Board of Directors of ECAC-SIDA prior to their annual convention in early June. It was felt that getting this report into the hands of CoSIDA membership, via conference PR Directors and/or Presidents/Chairs of various leadership groups, would help our membership get a better understanding and appreciation for the efforts that have taken place in a variety of areas over the course of this past academic year.
You can access this report on this web page http://cosida.com/about/general.aspx
(Under Board of Directors Strategic Plans Year-by-Year) or directly at this PDF: http://cosida.com/media/documents/2010/6/200910_CoSIDA__Board_Initiatives_Update_and_Review.pdf
Sponsorship and Fund Raising
• Fifty- two (52) sponsors pledged various levels of support for the CoSIDA Convention in San Francisco. Below is the link to the sponsor directory for the SF convention. We encourage you to drop a thank you note to these organizations for their support. To see a link to all the 2010 CoSIDA corporate partners supporting the Convention, please visit: http://cosida.com/documents/2010/6/17/2010-11_Sponsor_Directory.pdf .
• Collegiate Images signed a one-year contract extension with CoSIDA to handle all infringement based matters with regard to our Academic All-America federally registered mark. Collegiate Images took on this legal services role for CoSIDA beginning in July of 2009 and it proved quite helpful in helping CoSIDA successful stop infringement of its “AAA” mark several times over the course of the past year. CI’s new contract with CoSIDA recognizes it as “CoSIDA's Official Legal-Based Services Provider (for Academic All-America® Program).”
2010 Convention Exhibitors
• Nineteen exhibitors have reserved space in the exhibitor hall at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis for the CoSIDA Convention on July 4-7th. You can access this list and directory here: http://cosida.com/documents/2010/6/16/2010_CoSIDA_Exhibitors_Directory.pdf .
Survey/Research Based
• Joe Moore, a former SID at Central Missouri who is now a professor in the Communications Department at that school, will be coming to the San Francisco Convention to conduct meetings with various CoSIDA leadership groups to gather information and input for his dissertation on “Earned Influence in Collegiate Sports PR: Why Some Have it, and Others Don’t.” Joe will have a presentation to the CoSIDA Board on July 3rd and will also be conducting sessions with other leadership groups within CoSIDA over the course of the convention. The Board feels that Joe’s research work can assist it in the future with possible strategic initiatives.
Miscellaneous
• Congratulations to two members of our profession who have recently been named Athletic Directors. Scott Striklin, who served in communications roles at Auburn, Baylor and Kentucky, has been named the new Director of Athletics at Mississippi State. Brad Fields, Director of Media Relations at Western Kentucky, has been named the new Director of Athletics at Eastern University.
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.