The Northeastern University athletics department is running a summer feature entitled "Behind the Scenes" on its website -
www.gonu.com. In part four of the six-part series, the NU sports information department is featured. Full-time staff members Jack Grinold (Associate AD), Tom Chen (Associate Director) and Mark Majewski (Assistant Director) are interviewed and comment on their day-to-day operations and procedures, giving viewers a primer on collegiate athletic communications.
YouTube video:
Northeastern University Athletics: Sports Information
Northeastern University’s Sports Information office is the athletics department's vehicle for communication to the external constituents, primarily the media. Sports Information helps Northeastern receive publicity on its 18-sport varsity program through publications, the official athletics website GoNU.com and outreach to various media outlets.
As part of the interactions with the media, game notes and media guides are produced for all sports, keeping fans and writers up to date on the latest Northeastern Athletics information. During the athletic seasons, the office is also busy keeping track of statistics and records.
Associate Director of Sports Information Thomas Chen said, “During the season its very hectic. We do a lot of game activities, whether that’s in-game or getting ready for games.”
The gameday experience includes preparing game notes, setting up seats for the media, setting up computer and stat monitor equipment, taking in the statistics and distributing them to the media and to the masses on GoNU.com and running postgame press conferences.
Jack Grinold is the Associate Athletic Director of Communications and has been working in Northeastern’s sports information office since 1962. He described the changes in the department by saying, “The computer does all the work but it takes the same amount of people to input and keep track of everything, and feed it to the computer as the old days when you were doing it by hand.”
Mark Majewski, Assistant Director of Sports Information, described gameday operations by saying, “On the day of a game, we go online and make sure all information is accurate and ready to go.”
On any given hockey night, Majewski will be among the army of staff members and work study students responsible for providing accurate statistics and communicating the results of the contest to the masses. When the game is over and the fans depart, the sports information staff is still working hard late into the night to ensure everyone is satisfied. And they do it to help the Northeastern name carry further across the globe.
"What we do is a pretty behind-the-scenes job," Majewski said."