• 2016 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release
• Special Awards feature story schedule
by Blake Timm, Great Northwest Athletic Conference Assistant Commission For Communications
When people leave the sports information business, it is often for a related field or industry: sports writing, athletics administration, public relations. And when one leaves, it is most often for good.
When Blair Cash ended his first tenure as a sports information director in the early 1980s, it was for a much different calling – entering seminary. After nine years working at Division I and NAIA schools in the south, Cash felt it was time for a change.
“I loved the work that I was doing,” Cash recalled, “but personally, as a Christian, I felt like I had stopped growing. I didn’t have the time to work on it and I really wanted to grow in my walk with God.”
Cash strengthened his walk, but the allure of the ball fields and courts pulled him back. Now Cash, the assistant commissioner and sports information director for the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference, is celebrating a quarter century in sports information and will be honored with the College Sports Information Directors of America’s (CoSIDA) 25 Year Award.
A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Cash began his sports information career in his hometown at Belhaven College as a student and became the school’s first full time sports information director in 1976. After one year, he moved on a five-year stint at the University of Montevallo and then one year in the Division I ranks at South Alabama before enrolling at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson.
Upon graduation from seminary in 1987, Cash spent the next 15 years pastoring at churches in Texas and Mississippi.
Cash with his family: (bottom row, right): Cash, son Milton, daughter Megan and wife Debbie.
Even while in the pulpit, Cash kept at least one hand in the athletics world keeping basketball stats and doing play-by-play for Texas-Pan American from 1989 to 1994.
Eventually the pastoral calls took Cash and his family back to Jackson where, eventually, God called him to lie down in the green pastures of football fields and baseball diamonds.
“I was a full-time pastor for nine years, but during that whole time I missed it,” Cash said of his sports information sabbatical. “We went back to Mississippi, where I was working as a youth pastor and I kept thinking about how much I missed athletics. I wanted to get back into it.”
But breaking into the business, or in this case breaking back in, is a difficult task. Cash attended the 1998 CoSIDA Convention in Spokane, Washington, with hopes of landing back on campus through the Job Seekers program. There were no takers. Eventually Cash landed short stints at Southwestern Texas State and Samford before moving west to Newberg, Oregon, to take the sports information director position at George Fox University. He stayed there for the next 15 years.
It was at George Fox where Cash experienced his greatest sports memories, chronicling the Bruins’ Division III baseball championship in 2004 and the school’s women’s basketball national championship in 2009. The women’s basketball team was coached by Scott Rueck, who this year led Oregon State to its first Division I Women’s Final Four.
After the baseball title, Cash could hardly believed what he had experienced.
“I thought about that every day for three weeks. Wow, we really did that,” Cash said. “Some in our business wonder if they will ever get one and I was fortunate enough to get two in my career.”
Following the 2014-15 school year, Cash transitioned into his current role with the Northwest Conference, of which George Fox is a member. He has spent the last two years faithfully serving the conference, but without a watchful eye on the Bruins he came to know and love.
“It can be hard at times not to root for George Fox,” Cash admitted. “But the conference is a great different prospective because I am getting to know all these players and coaches from the other schools as well. It’s great to see all of our conference schools do well and you can root for everyone.
“At George Fox, if we lost a championship or a tournament, there was a sadness to it. Not so much at the conference office because we are pulling for everyone.”
Throughout his career, Cash has been an active member of CoSIDA. He has served on the Ethics Committee since 2001 and spent time on the Convention Planning Committee. For 10 years, Cash organized the annual chapel service at the CoSIDA Convention. He coordinated the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association’s Division III Hitter and Pitcher of the Week program for eight years.
Cash’s true passion in sports, though, is baseball. One of the most knowledgeable scorers around, Cash has served as the official scorer for the Jackson (Mississippi) Mets and Generals, the Birmingham (Alabama) Barons, the Portland (Oregon) Rockies and the Portland Beavers. He is currently the official scorer for the Short-A Hillsboro Hops and also does games for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. No matter where the CoSIDA Convention is, Cash is sure to find a game. You can find in him in Frisco taking in a Roughriders game at some point during convention week.
Cash is also an avid bird watcher and has 378 species on his life list from all over the western hemisphere.
Even with his return to sports information, Cash continues to make time to serve God. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Cash is a minster-at-large in the Presbytery of the Cascades, serving churches in Oregon and southwest Washington. He also teaches Bible Survey classes as an adjunct professor in the religious studies department at George Fox.
Cash has been married to his wife, Debbie, for 29 years. The couple has two grown children: Milton, a recent graduate of Portland Community College, and Megan, who graduated from Belhaven in May. Neither have shown interest in following their dad’s footsteps into sports information.