Check out past profiles
Patrick Walsh, Mercer
Denise Thompson, Northern Arizona
Jeremy Rosenthal, Indiana
Brian Davis, Texas
Bryan Marshall, Millikin
Kim Ling, Ole Miss
Rick Baker, Mars Hill University
Sam Atkinson, Gallaudet University
Judy Willson, Mountain West Conference
Chris Wenzler, John Carroll University
Tom Caudill, Muskingum University |
This is the next profile Q and A in a series entitled
Communicators Outside the Lines: Better Yourself, Better Your Community produced by the CoSIDA Goodwill & Wellness Committee.
HAVE IDEAS OR MEMBERS TO NOMINATE FOR THIS SERIES?
If you have any ideas for this series, which will revolve around CoSIDA member volunteerism and health and wellness, please contact Goodwill and Wellness Committee chair
Chris Mitchell, Washington University in St. Louis Assistant AD for Communications, at (618) 560-9280 or
mitchell@wustl.edu.
Q&A with Donny Nadeau
Sports Information Director, Saint Mary's University (Minn.)
By Ryan Klinkner, Athletic Media Relations Director, Saint John's University (Minn.)
CoSIDA Goodwill and Wellness Committee member
The 2016-17 academic year is
Donny Nadeau’s 23
rd as the Sports Information Director at Saint Mary’s University (Minn.). He oversees 19 sports and has earned national recognition for his sports writing. Nadeau graduated from Saint Mary’s in 1985 with a degree in print journalism and spent 10 years in the newspaper business — as a sports reporter for the
Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald and the
Winona (Minn.) Daily News. He also served as the
Winona Daily News sports editor, and as a sports copy editor at the
La Crosse (Wis.) Tribune. Nadeau was named the recipient of the 2011 Mike Augustin Award from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and the 2014 Bishop Patrick Heffron Award from Saint Mary’s.
Q: What, in your opinion, have been the biggest challenges and transitions in the sports information field since you started in the mid-1990s?
NADEAU: The field of sports information has changed so much in the last 20-plus years. Gone are the days of mailing or faxing rosters and schedules to opposing teams (yes, we actually did that; and no, I’m not talking about "e"-mailing), and in its place is a 24/7, 365-day demand for sports information. The SID no longer just compiles stats at a game, sends out scores to the local papers and goes home. Now there’s live stats, live video, live chat, tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram pictures—not to mention recaps, photos and updating of the website. Ah yes, the website. For most, life without the internet is something that is almost unfathomable—need a question answered, just Google it (or ask Siri). When I started at Saint Mary’s, the internet was in its infancy—and no one had any idea how those simple characters—www.—would change the landscape of sports information. Challenges over the past 20 years … learning, learning and learning—all on the fly. From the early days of writing .html, to the more recent demand for infographics, these are all things that my print journalism degree forgot to teach me. And then there’s social media. Again, something that the “younger crowd” has grown up with, but Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram—and now Snapchat—are all media that might as well have been written in Arabic. But I’ve always believed that our job is to get the information regarding our institutions to the masses, and we have to meet our audience where they are at—and if that’s the written word of a recap, or a 140-character tweet, that’s what I am going to do.
Q: As a one-man shop, how have you adapted?
NADEAU: I’m a very good juggler. In reality, you do what you have to do, and you do it to the best of your ability. I think one of my biggest strengths—something that’s crucial to one-man operations—is being able to plan ahead. You can’t just focus on what’s happening today, but you have to be aware of what’s on the horizon. Begin preparations in the spring for the upcoming fall seasons. Anything you can do ahead of time will benefit you in the long run—whether it is a pre-game or post-game graphic template —all of the prep work you can do early makes crunch time that much easier to manage. One of the things I have really tried to do a better job at is getting help with the things I am not so good at—I find free-lance photographers, for example, to do all my in-game photography. And always be open to learn. Photoshop, Illustrator, Excel…there are great tutorials online to help you learn these programs that have become so much a part of what we do. Talk to your student-athletes—when it comes to social media, they are my best teachers. It’s second nature to them, let them show you the way.
It’s not easy working in a one-man office—being responsible for the website, game previews and recaps, video previews, game programs, social media (we have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts)—it’s a lot. The demands on our profession continue to grow, and our plates continue to over-flow, but if you love what you do, and you have a passion for your institution, you find a way to make it all work.
Q: What was it like raising your two sons (now both college graduates) in this profession, especially during the evolution of the field?
NADEAU: In a way, it was a bit easier during the “early years” because the in-game demand wasn’t quite as prevalent. There were no “live stats” or “live video” or tweeting. I could grab the game sheet from a hockey game and input it manually, do my recaps, etc. Which allowed me to devote more time to what was truly important to me—being a good husband and father. I spread myself very, very thin in the 1990s and early 2000s. Along with my SID duties, I also served as an assistant men’s hockey coach at Saint Mary’s, as well as a youth and high school hockey coach—which made for some very long days. But to me, that time coaching my sons was something I will cherish for the rest of my life. Being an SID in today’s day and age is incredibly demanding, but it should not be all-encompassing. To me, there has to be a balance—my job is incredibly important and I take great pride in the work that I do, but I also take great joy in the time that I spend with my wife, Deedee, and my sons, Andy and Joey. It’s easy to get wrapped up in all the demands that this profession presents, but there has to be some balance, make time for your family and friends—even if that means the men’s basketball recap doesn’t get posted until four or five hours after the game, rather than what you are accustomed to.
Q: Although you have participated in the recent trend of 5k runs, the bulk of your fitness regimen consists of push-ups, a lot of them. How did that start?
NADEAU: I guess you can say I am a push-up addict. I have always been one who enjoys working out—running and weight training mostly. A little over three years ago, I came across a post on Facebook called the 100x100 Challenge—a challenge to do 100 push-ups a day (it didn’t matter how many at a time, just so you did 100 in a day) every day for a 100 straight days. It seemed like it might be kind of fun, so I started the challenge. But 100 didn’t seem like enough—so I improvised and am currently up to 300 a day. Since July 16, 2013—the day I started the challenge, doing my first 100 push-ups in Arches National Park in Utah—to today (minus a seven-month rehab following shoulder surgery due to a jet-ski accident), I am well past 200,000 push-ups and nearing nearly 730 consecutive days.
Q: Now on to mental health. I’ve always envied your road trips each summer and your ability to disconnect from the office. Can you please motivate me and others in our profession to do this too?
NADEAU: As I had said in an early question, work-life balance is so important—believe it or not. We all love our jobs and are driven by it. But it can’t be all-consuming—you have to have time for yourself or for your family. My family has always been one that, no matter how busy our summers may be, we always took a two week vacation—usually out West, but always to one or more of our great national parks, where we’d tent camp and just unplug. As our two boys got older, they stopped joining us on those summer trips—but it didn’t slow down my wife and I. Because my wife is a school teacher and I have my allotment of five-weeks vacation, we have turned our family two-week trips into a five-week national park adventure—and yes, despite being in our early 50s, we are still tent camping it! The summer is a chance for both Deedee and I to “recharge” our batteries for the upcoming school years, and what better place than our national parks. Talk about “stopping to smell the roses”—from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, to Arches and Canyonlands in Utah … Yosemite, Death Valley, Olympic, Great Sand Dunes, Mount Rainer, Crater Lake, Mesa Verde, Hovenweep … what better places to recharge! Because I can never really
not work, I of course bring along a small stuffed Cardinal bird, and BigRed Cardinal gets his picture taken at all these amazing places and I post them to Facebook and Twitter so people can follow along on our adventures. (stay tuned … Summer Road Trip 2017 is already in the works!). I have had so many people say how much they envy our road trips, but there really is nothing to envy, anyone can—and should—enjoy the same experiences we do, you just need to go out and do it! I hear people often say that they want to travel more when they retire, or when their kids have grown … why wait? This job can literally swallow you whole, and if you don’t take time for yourself and your family, you are really missing out on what’s truly important in life. With my eye condition, I don’t know how much longer I will get to enjoy these travels—and I’m not about to waste a minute of the time I have.
Q: A few years ago at an MIAC Sports Information Directors meeting, you informed your colleagues of an eye disease you have been battling. If you wouldn’t mind, can you tell us about it?
NADEAU: Sure. When I was a young boy, 10-11, I was diagnosed with a genetic eye disease called choroideremia. Choroideremia is a condition characterized by progressive vision loss that mainly affects males. The vision impairment in choroideremia worsens over time, but the progression varies among affected individuals. However, all individuals with this condition will develop blindness, most commonly in late adulthood. Early on, I kept this pretty much to myself—after all, it was my cross to bear and I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me or treating me any differently. Eventually, the circle of people who knew of my eye troubles grew, and several years ago I made it be known to everyone—because the progression of my sight loss is increasing, and more and more, I need physical assistance. It’s not an easy topic to talk about—it’s scary to think about living without my eyesight, but it’s also not the end of the world! I lost both of my parents and my mother-in-law to debilitating diseases, this is just a minor inconvenience compared to that. Choroideremia has won a lot of battles in our 40-plus years together, but I’m not about to let it win the war. I may not be able to play golf or softball anymore, but I can still hike, kayak, and enjoy the great outdoors; I am no longer able ride a bike or drive a car, and I haven’t owned a driver’s license in over four years, which just means more alone time with my chauffer, Deedee. I had to step down from the coaching ranks, but that just gives me more free time to play with my four-year-old granddaughter, Avery. Do I miss being able to do all of those things? Of course I do, but having an eye disease doesn’t change the person that I am. I’ve known for a long time that I would eventually lose my eyesight—it doesn’t make it any easier, but I’ve been able to prepare as best I can. My attitude … It’s just another speed bump in the road map of life.
Q: How has it affected your job?
NADEAU: Fortunately, most of the requirements of an SID are computer-related, and so in that regards, choroideremia has not had much of an affect to this point. Many people in our profession are able to stat games in StatCrew games by themselves, whereas I need to have a spotter to help me with numbers, etc.—my eyes just can’t follow the action of a game the way they used to. What has been the biggest change over the past several years has been the inability to drive. Which means that my wife gives me a ride to work every morning, picks me up every afternoon, takes me back to work on game days, and picks me up when my work is done. Deedee has always been by my side—my eyes when mine don’t work—and I count my lucky stars every day that she has been in my life. I have a great support system with my family at home, and my family here at Saint Mary’s, which really allows me to continue to do my job to the best of my abilities. I am learning to reach out more, to ask people for help, but that’s not easy to do—losing the ability to do things for yourself is probably the hardest part of my battle with choroideremia.
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