Note: This is the 29th article in the CoSIDA Special Awards feature series which is highlighting all 2013 Special Award recipients. All recipients will be honored at the
CoSIDA Convention (June 12-15) in conjunction with the NACDA and Affiliates Convention at Orlando's Marriott World Center.
See the full list of recipients and features schedule.
by Mark Beckenbach
Ohio Wesleyan University Sports Information Director
Co-Chair, CoSIDA Academic All-America® Committee
If it were up to Bernadette (Bernie) Cafarelli, Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations at the University of Notre Dame, you wouldn't be reading this article. She would sooner walk through fire than receive personal accolades.
What her colleagues and counterparts have long known, however, is that Cafarelli is a consummate professional at the top of her field, and so they have made her one of five members of the College Sports Information Directors of America to be inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame at the 2013 CoSIDA Convention in Orlando. The induction takes place at the Hall of Fame Luncheon on June 14.
Cafarelli is a native of Schenectady, N.Y. After graduating from Notre Dame, she earned a master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio University prior to entering the athletic communications profession.
Cafarelli’s storied career has seen her make stops at the College of William & Mary and Providence College before returning to her alma mater in 1994, then move up the ladder during her two decades at Notre Dame. Currently, she works primarily with the Fighting Irish men’s basketball team and serves as co-editor of both the football game program and the athletic department’s annual report.
Along the way, she has made an indelible impact on those who work alongside her, as well as those fortunate enough to have her work on their behalf.
Gregg Burke, the Sports Information Director at Providence during Cafarelli’s time there and currently Deputy Athletic Director at Rhode Island, says, “Bernie has those old-fashioned qualities that represent the very best of an SID’s role and relationship with campus and department administration, coaches and athletes, boosters and fans, and with the people of the media. But, as the profession changed, she changed with it and is now among its most-respected practitioners.”
As Cafarelli’s supervisor for much of those two decades at Notre Dame, Senior Associate Athletics Director John Heisler is perhaps the most qualified to offer a perspective on her work.
“While Bernie currently specializes in working with our men’s basketball squad here at Notre Dame, she has worked with a number of our sports over the years,” Heisler states. “And you won't find any of those student-athletes who would not have special words for the way in which Bernie has cared for them, more as students and people, and far beyond being concerned with only their athletic accomplishments. And, again, that’s what our business is supposed to be about.”
That’s the essence of this well-deserved recognition: Cafarelli embodies what this profession is about.
She works not only to recognize her student-athletes for their on-the-field accomplishments, but for their classroom successes as well. She serves as a member of Notre Dame's Academic Honors Program, working as one of six committee members from the University who coordinate the program. The Honors Program pairs student-athletes who excel both in the classroom and on the playing field with a faculty mentor in their designated field of interest, and includes 40-44 student-athletes annually.
Cafarelli also has been a member of CoSIDA’s Academic All-America® committee since 1988. She first served as a district coordinator and then a national coordinator, then for many years as a vice-chair, before assuming her current position as co-chair of the national committee. She oversees the external functions of the committee, including working with CoSIDA staff and other committee members on publicity, awards, and the Capital One Academic All-America® Hall of Fame. She received CoSIDA’s Lester Jordan Award, recognizing service to the Academic All-America® program, in 2000.
It was Dave Wrath, longtime SID at Augustana College and member of the Academic All-America® committee, who summed it up best. “Bernie is the absolute essence of professionalism at its highest level. She operates under a huge microscope at Notre Dame and she works her craft with the precision that most of us can only hope to emulate. She has taken on every challenge in the fishbowl that comes with being the public voice of the Irish and, like everything she does in life, she has met each one.”