original article is available online:
Publicity efforts earn honors for three DIII schools, by Jack Copeland
NCAA.org (via Division III membership website)
A feature story about a student-athlete’s research into burnout, and collaborative work by two schools to report on a pair of distance runners’ efforts to provide books and computers for Congolese children are honorees in a quarterly recognition program jointly sponsored by the NCAA and the Division III College Sports Information Directors of America (D3SIDA).
An article from Pacific (Oregon) about research conducted by basketball student-athlete Brittney Anderson asked, “
Does Academics, Perfectionism Cause Division III Athletes to Burn Out?”
The effort by to publicize the project in the Congo reported how “
Mount Union’s Tim Kelly and Denison’s Dee Salukombo Discover, Develop and Dedicate in NCAA Division III.”
The Pacific (Ore.) athletics media relations effort is led by Sports Information Director
Blake Timm, while the Mount Union feature was penned by assistant to the athletic director (for communications and marketing)
Lenny Reich.
Both features were selected by a panel of sports information directors representing D3SIDA as the best work portraying the Division III model of intercollegiate athletics during a three-month period beginning in March.
The panel also awarded honorable mention
to Minnesota-Morris for a package of essays and 
articles compiled for the April celebration of Division III Week, and mostly written by student-athletes.
The quarterly recognition program is part of the
Division III identity initiative. The recognition program seeks to honor the best work – including news releases, feature articles, videos, blogs and other materials – produced by Division III campus and conference sports information and strategic communications offices.
“Athletics communicators play a crucial role in promoting the Division III model of intercollegiate athletics, which encourages student-athletes to ‘follow their passions and develop their potential’,” said Dan Dutcher, NCAA Division III vice president. “This outstanding work by these sports information offices is a laudable example of the ways in which our member institutions portray the Division III philosophy as it is practiced on our campuses.”
Pacific Feature
Pacific’s feature reported how Anderson, in response to her own feelings as the result of an injury, devoted her senior research project to the question of whether playing sports at an academically demanding institution – and the desire to achieve perfection both in competition and in the classroom – might be a predictor of burnout.
The article also detailed Anderson’s experience in dealing with injury:
“At the end of that junior year, after the pain of the season and the second surgery in as many years on the same knee, Anderson needed an avenue to keep from burning out. She needed a reminder of why she was not only at school, but why she endured the pain to stay on the court.
“So she sat down and watched herself on tape and she put her perfectionist tendencies aside. Instead of breaking down defenses, evaluating how she ran the offense or transition, she just took in how much fun she was having on the court. Reliving past glories, even from earlier in the season, lit the fire again.
“ ‘I tried to remember why I loved playing the game, and watching the old game film brought it back,’ Anderson said. ‘I thought, OK, you do love this game. You do like to play. That got me through it.’
“Anderson said that despite the injuries, the opportunity to play basketball at Pacific was a dream come true. It allowed her to grow in ways that the classroom could never teach.”
Mount Union Feature
The feature about Kelly and Salukombo, which appeared on Mount Union’s athletics website, helped bring even more attention to efforts by Salukombo to help children in his native country – a project that has drawn significant national and regional media attention since the Denison student-athlete ran 120 miles in Ohio last summer as a fund-raiser for the effort and later received a $10,000 grant to open a learning center in his home village of Kriotshe.
The feature, which also detailed Kelly’s plans to donate proceeds from an auction of his senior photography exhibit to the Congolese project, reported:
“ ‘After many interviews with school officials, parents, and students,’ Salukombo said in an interview at Denison, ‘it is evident that even though the Congolese are working together to make the educational change that is needed to bring peace in the country, there is an immense lack of learning resources to make this effort successful.’
“His longtime friend Kelly is now trying to do his part to help.
“ ‘When Dee had told me about the grant he received as well as what he plans on doing with it, I felt an immediate urge to help him in any way I could,’ stated Kelly.
“A media communications major at Mount Union, Kelly had planned a gallery showing of his own photography work in Cleveland as his senior project but now it has taken on a dual theme.”
Nomination Information
The next award will be presented this fall for work produced during the three-month period that began June 1. Nominations for recognition are encouraged and may be submitted via the
d3identity@ncaa.org email address.
Jack Copeland is a consultant to the Division III identity initiative.