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Note: Award-winning University of Minnesota Duluth Assistant Athletic Director - Communications
Bob Nygaard will be inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame during ceremonies on Monday, June 15 at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, site of the 2015 CoSIDA convention. In 2004, Nygaard received the CoSIDA Bob Kenworthy Community Service Award for his civic involvement and accomplishments outside athletic communications. Nygaard was also the recipient of a UMD Outstanding Service Award in both 2003-04 (for his exemplary work with the 2003 NCAA Women's Hockey Frozen Four event) and 2004-05 (for his service to the university).
by Jess Myers
In the fall of 1987, as a wide-eyed college freshman at the University of Minnesota Duluth, I went to work for Bob Nygaard in the school’s sports information (now athletic media relations) office. It was near the end of an era when the biggest and most time-consuming job in the office, on the Monday prior to a home football game, was calling the upcoming opponent’s sports information office and typing out, line-by-line, their entire football roster as another student worker dictated all of the details over the phone.
On at least one occasion that year, I was the student charged with driving around to the major media outlets in Duluth/Superior – three TV stations, a daily newspaper and a few radio stations – to hand-deliver a press release with some breaking news. In helping write those releases, I learned much from Bob, including exacting standards of writing quality and exacting proofreading.
A year later, UMD got its first fax machine – one unit used by the entire campus – and everything changed. A decade later the era of email and Internet arrived, and everything changed again.
A few weeks ago, while visiting Duluth to help register my oldest son at UMD (he will be a freshman there in the fall) I sat beside Bob in the
Bulldogs’ hockey press box and watched, with a hard-fought conference game was going on just a few feet away, as he updated a cross country story on the Bulldogs’ official athletic news web site, poring through results from that day’s meet and picking out a few nuggets to highlight for the handful of UMD fans out there awaiting the harriers’ results.
It was a moment that symbolized how much the job of athletic communications has changed in the nearly three decades that Nygaard has been a friend and a hero in my life, and also a moment that showed me how little Nygaard and his tireless dedication to his craft has changed over the years.
Duluth and UMD have grown dramatically since he returned to his hometown after graduation from UW-Eau Claire to work for the school just a few miles from his boyhood home. And the scope of the job has grown exponentially as well. In Nygaard’s second year on the job, when he was 25, the Bulldogs qualified for the NCAA men's hockey Frozen Four in Detroit, and he recalls that one phone call from a Michigan newspaper was the extent of the out-of-town press inquiring about UMD hockey prior to the arrival at Joe Louis Arena.
In 2004, the Bulldogs returned to the Frozen Four and the difference was stark. In that 10-day period between the regionals and the Bulldogs’ trip to Boston, Nygaard had daily conversations with ESPN, media requests from dozens of newspapers, web sites, TV stations and radio stations. The
Boston Globe even flew a reporter to Duluth to file on-scene reports in advance.
“Between reporters wanting interviews, photos, logos and other information requests, it’s been amazing,” Nygaard told InsideCollegeHockey.com that week. “You really see how the college hockey world has grown, how the Internet has changed the media, and how big a deal the Frozen Four has become.”
But if the Internet changed the sports media world forever, it could hardly change Nygaard, other than increasing his in-season workload. For a decade, he’s been the lone full-time member of the UMD athletics media relations staff, and often answers his office phone well after dark on those long nights when there is an impending deadline, and there is one more bio for a sophomore defensive lineman that needs to be written. Still, even with that daunting workload, Nygaard is loath to say no, and is widely renowned as a friendly face when a member of the media is in need.
“Duluth is a market where a ton of young journalists -- myself included -- began their careers,” said Chris Long of KSTP-TV in the Twin Cities, who spent eight years at KDLH-TV in Duluth. “Bob was always as kind to us rookies as he was to the pros. He was patient and helpful, which isn’t always easy to do when a SID is faced with handling newcomers, or pros, for that matter.”
Away from the field, the court and the rink, Nygaard is a man of strong Catholic faith, and has been a Sunday school teacher for many years. He is an avid reader who likes few things more than a comfy chair next to a northern lake where he can read the Sunday paper in the abundant sunshine of Minnesota’s way-too-short summers. He is a passionate liberal who even spent a few years on the Duluth School Board.
In 2000, in the interest of giving back to the community, Nygaard started Mentor Duluth Night at UMD hockey games. He recruits his former
student workers and other members of the athletic department staff to donate money to purchase discounted UMD hockey tickets so young members of Mentor Duluth – a Big Brothers/Big Sisters style organization that helps young people in the Twin Ports – and their adult mentors can attend a college hockey game. With roughly 300 participants each year, Mentor Duluth Night has welcomed more than 4,000 fans for a night on the town.
“Bob is a perfect person to work in a frenetic atmosphere where college students are learning and veteran journalists are demanding,” said Chris Miller, assistant sports editor at the
Minneapolis Star Tribune, and a long-time member of the sports staff at the
Duluth News-Tribune. “He can handle both with patience and understanding.”
With all of the myriad changes in the world of sports media over the years, there has been one constant inside the UMD athletic department: to all who know him, Bob Nygaard a true professional, and a true friend.
About the Author: Jess Myers covers college and pro hockey for USA Hockey Magazine and for 1500 ESPN in the Twin Cities. He is a 1991 graduate of the University of Minnesota Duluth and lives in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., with his wife and three children.