• 2015 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release
• Special Awards feature story schedule
by Tammy Boclair, Alday Communications Vice President/CoSIDA Special Awards Committee
When he started out in college sports information, no one told Richard Kilwien where he needed to go within the industry.
However, College Sports
Information Directors of America Hall of Famer Ted Nance did tell him how to get there.
Nance suggested that Kilwien, his intern and later media relations assistant at the University of Houston, follow a three-year framework. Learn the job in the first year. Improve and forge your path in the second. By the third year, have a pretty good idea of whether or not you will have an opportunity to advance within the organization.
“(Nance) gave me the freedom to try things, forge my own path and learn from mistakes and successes,” Kilwien said.
From there, Kilwien has carved out an impressive career and is now being honored for his 25 years of service in athletic communications.
In the first decade of his career, which began under Nance in 1988, Kilwien accelerated the process slightly. He spent two years each at the University of Houston, Duke University, the Southwest Conference, Raycom Sports and three at Texas Tech University.
Wherever he went in those first 10 years, he always found himself immersed in a major story.
He worked on Andre Ware’s Heisman Trophy campaign at Houston. He was part of Duke’s back-to-back NCAA men’s basketball championships and was courtside when Christian Laettner hit “the shot” to defeat Kentucky and advance to the championship game. He worked on a successful Doak Walker Award campaign for Texas Tech’s Byron Hanspard, was instrumental in launching Texas Tech’s first website and helped design the media operations areas in the $62 million United Spirit Arena.
“It’s pretty overwhelming when you think about it,” Kilwien said. “There have been so many great memories of coaches, student-athletes, media members, peers, co-workers and administrators.”
Kilwien has spent the last five years in Saint Mary’s athletic department and was promoted to associate athletic director for external affairs in 2011.
He credits CoSIDA for keeping him connected to the hundreds of SIDs that he has crossed paths with over the years.
“As much as things have changed over the years, the core of CoSIDA’s mission has remained the same - serving the membership, advancing the profession and educating administrators on our importance.”
He has learned a thing or two in a 25-year career that includes stops at universities, conference offices and sports networks. How, therefore, he is in a position to offer a little advice of his own.
“If you remain selfless and humble about why you are in the profession, you will be successful,” he said. “It is all about the student-athletes, coaches and institutions and not the sports information director.”
Kilwien is not surprised he remained in the profession so long.
“I’m honestly not sure what else I could ever do that I would enjoy so much,” he said. “When I first learned there was an actual profession where you could make a living by going to games, working with coaches and student-athletes, and traveling around the world, it was an easy decision to go into ‘sports information.’ It still shocks me to this day that I have made a living in a profession that other people consider a hobby.”
A legendary lineup of Southwest Conference SIDS and Cotton Bowl staff members helped mold Kilwien in his early years. Joe Hornaday first hired him as a student at Texas Tech. Nine years later he succeeded Hornaday as that school’s SID and suddenly had a peer group that included the likes of Maxey Parrish, Bill Whitmore, Bill Cousins, Bill Little, Glen Stone, Paul Ridings, Rick Shaeffer, John Keith, Bo Carter, Charlie Fiss and Bob Genarelli.
“Those guys were ‘giants’ when I dove into the profession and they have no idea how much they impacted young SIDs like me,” he said. “I still have fond memories of those days.”
Working in sports information helped him make one other important ‘connection.’ Karen Yee, a prep All-America and scholarship basketball player at University of Houston, eventually became his wife.
The couple has a son, Preston, who will attend Florida Gulf Coast University on a soccer scholarship this fall.
“Thankfully, I have a wonderful, supportive wife who understood what I did for a living and the demands it required.” Kilwien said. “She would be by my side anytime I needed a statistician, scoreboard operator, videographer. … She is the one who made the sacrifices, but was always up for a challenge when new job opportunities came up.”
“As a young person, it is pretty easy to get caught up in the competitive success of teams and harder to see the big picture of why working in college athletics is so special,” he said. “The reason many of us have had such long careers in this profession is because of the positive influences we can have on the overall personal growth of student athletes.”