William "Bill" Hamilton has spent 40 years as the Sports Information Director at South Carolina State and is the only SID that the institution has ever had. On October 16, Hamilton announced his plans to retire in June 2013.
Hamilton was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America
(CoSIDA) Hall of Fame in 2009 and also is an inductee of the South Carolina State Athletics and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Hall of Fames. Hamilton also earned the prestigious CoSIDA
Arch Ward Award in 2009 which is presented annually to a university division member who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college sports information, and who by his or her activities has brought dignity and prestige to the profession. He was honored with the CoSIDA
Bob Kenworthy Community Service Award in 1998. In May, Hamilton was honored for his contributions to sports in the Palmetto State by the South Carolina Athletics Hall of Fame as he earned the Herman Helms Media Excellence Award.
See online: Longtime SID Bill Hamilton retiring, by Thomas Grant, The Times and Democrat
"The hardest working man in Orangeburg" is finally calling it a day at South Carolina State University.
After 40 years as the only sports information director the Orangeburg school has ever hired, William "Bill" Hamilton confirmed Tuesday his plans to relinquish the day-to-day duties effectively June 2013.
The news was actually revealed by Florida A&M head football coach Joe Taylor towards the end of his weekly teleconference session with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He stated the Tallahassee school has planned a special presentation for Hamilton during halftime of Saturday's game against S.C. State which will air via tape delay on ESPNU.
The school was reportedly planning to release the news about Hamilton's retirement on Wednesday.
A native of Baltimore, Md. who grew up in Chesterfield, Hamilton's career at S.C. State began in 1973 following graduation when he was called back by then-public relations director Malverse Nicholson to interview for the information specialist position in his department.
Eventually, the late S.C. State President Maceo Nance created a separate sports information director position and placed Hamilton in charge.
And the rest is history. Much as Helms did with his coverage of the University of South Carolina, Hamilton has provided Bulldog fans a close look of their sports programs. Entering his 39th year as SID, Hamilton has witnessed more than 400 S.C. State football games, attended five NCAA men’s basketball tournament games involving the Bulldogs and was in attendance when the women's basketball team claimed the 1979 AIAW Division II national championship.
Hamilton's work has earned him induction into three Halls of Fame (S.C. State Athletics, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and College Sports Information of America) and the prestigious Herman Helms Media Excellence Award this past May. He was the second recipient of the award named after the longtime sports editor for The State newspaper credited with reviving interest in the S.C. Athletics Hall of Fame and its first media inductee.
“I’ve been awfully lucky to have stayed at South Carolina State 39 years,” said Hamilton in a May T&D interview. “Being the first to officially serve in the position of sports information director, I’ve certainly had an opportunity to see a lot of history as it unfolded, working with some great student-athletes, some outstanding coaches and some really top programs. So I’ve had a chance to see a lot of things unfold and I’ve tried to chronicle as much of it as I can, and I’m hoping one day to kind of put a lot of things in some type of historic way so people can have it forever."