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Debbie Harmison White (Old Dominion University), CoSIDA Hall of Fame
by Debby Jennings, University of Tennessee Associate Athletics Director for Media Relations (retired)
Debbie Harmison White in her Old Dominion office.
As
Debbie Harmison White thinks back on her 36-year career, she sees the faces of colleagues, student-athletes, coaches and friends who became inextricably woven into the fabric of her life, and she smiles.
The retired Old Dominion University senior associate athletic director for external relations will be a June 2017 inductee into the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame where she becomes the 16th female member.
The Hall of Fame honor comes on the heels of White receiving a 2016 CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award at the convention last summer.
“I am humbled beyond words to receive this honor,” White said. “To join the company of friends and mentors like Nick Vista, Roger Valdiserri, ‘The Fat Fox’ Don Bryant, Langston Rogers, Budd Thalman, David Housel, Mary Jo Haverbeck, Tammy Boclair, Tam Flarup, Debby Jennings, and so many others. I really never thought I would see this day.”
Back in the day, if White had her druthers, she might have coached football instead of becoming an SID. But more on that later.
Following graduation from West Virginia, she became the first full-time female sportswriter in the state of Virginia, serving on the staff of
The Daily Press from 1974-77. At the same time, White earned her master's in education from William and Mary.
Although she truly enjoyed sports writing, White was eager to take a leap of faith when she took on the role as the sports information director at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, from 1977-79. At that time, she was one of just three women SIDs in the nation at an NCAA Division I school.
“I totally learned on the job at Siena. I quickly found out that being an SID was such an all-consuming job that I really didn’t think I would last very long in the profession,” she admits. But like so many who are drawn to being an SID, she became hooked on the interaction, telling the story and celebrating the accomplishments of the student-athletes, the coaches and the university they represented.
Personally, my path crossed with White when she was hired by Old Dominion in 1979 as the assistant sports information director. Our almost four-decade old friendship was cemented as our women’s basketball squads were among the teams battling for center stage on the national scene in those days.
After a year on the job at ODU, the administration knew they had a real go-getter. White was quickly promoted to the position of SID where she played a key role in the national exposure of not only Monarch and Lady Monarch basketball, but ultra-successful programs like field hockey and sailing.
Emerging as one of the best in the business, White caught the eye of the U.S. Olympic Committee and during her SID tenure, she served on the 1981 and 1982 USOC Sports Festival media staffs and represented the United States on the media coordination team at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
To all of us who enjoyed serving the USOC, the experience was like no other.
“What an incredible training ground for SIDs,” White said. “I was a non-athlete myself, so being picked to work the Winter Olympics was unbelievable and it still ranks up there for me as one of my greatest personal memories and achievements.”
White had the opportunity to step away from ODU in 1984-85 for a one-year journalism teaching stint at Virginia Commonwealth University. When she returned to Norfolk, she was named as an assistant athletic director and was progressively promoted to associate director in 1995 and senior associate athletic director in 2003.
In 1985, she was tasked with helping to revive a football program which had been dormant for 69 years. White had the clever idea they had to send out a full-size football to the media and advertisers to get the excitement churning in Norfolk. Even though adding football was initially voted down by the Board of Visitors, I recall how thrilled White was in 2005 when the announcement came that ODU would finally field a team in 2009.
“Winning our women’s basketball national championships really put us on the map and took us a long way in the image-making and branding of our university. But second, clearly, was the institution of football,” she noted.
White came from a football background growing up as a coach's daughter. Her dad, Dick Harmison, coached on the collegiate and high school levels for nearly four decades including 19 years at Virginia Military Institute (VMI).
“I love college football. In my 36 years at Old Dominion, the biggest impact on changing my daily life at work, and obviously the biggest impact on the university, was adding football,” White said.
Never idle, she was a member of the NCAA Communications Committee, NCAA Basketball Marketing Committee, and the Creative Content Committee for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. White also served as a member of the NCAA media liaison team and as press moderator at the NCAA Women’s Final Four from 1986-2006.
CoSIDA recognized her in 2006 with the Trailblazer Award for her pioneering efforts in the profession.
“I never saw myself staying as long as I did at ODU,” said White. “College athletics is a great place to work and thrive, and to women I say, don’t be afraid to jump in the pool. I loved it and don’t regret a single moment.
“It’s a pretty good gig.”
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