College Sports Information Directors of America

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Steve McCloskey (Mansfield University), Lifetime Achievement Award
by Ryan McNamara, Mansfield University Sports Information Director
 

The 2013 fourth quarter game clock ticked down as an exhausted man clad in a black sport coat with an M-shaped pin on its lapel walked off the sidelines of Karl Van Norman Field and made his way past thousands of fans. He climbed the demanding concrete steps leading up and away from an electric gridiron and into a silent Decker Gymnasium. Like a thousand times before, he walked the long hallway into an unkempt office where he gazed out the second-story window onto the scene below. Then he began to write.

“Mansfield wins first night football game in 121 years.”

Months of meetings, phone calls, emails, and favors brought the spotlight to a rural town with a college emerging from its eastern hill. More than a century after a group of students from Mansfield State Normal School concocted the idea of playing football under the newly invented electric lighting, Mansfield hosted its second home night football game on that chilly September night in 2013.

It was the next great performance by Mansfield University Sports Information Director Steve McCloskey.

In 1945, America’s greatest generation came home from war and unknowingly created the biggest societal shift in USA history. The sons and daughters of post-World War II America grew up and went to college in record numbers. In the 1970s, Mansfield State College swelled to capacity to meet the demands of the baby boomer generation.

One of those students was the son of a legendary high school basketball coach from Danville, Pennsylvania. Steve McCloskey arrived on Mansfield’s campus in the summer of 1971 to enroll in courses at the college in northern Pennsylvania. It began a lifetime love affair.

However, it was not your traditional success story.

After two years at Mansfield, Steve dropped out to open a bar outside of the University of Florida in Gainesville. He would briefly return to Mansfield before leaving once again for Florida, this time to live on the beach near Sarasota.

In the late 80s, Steve worked as a manager in the Wendy’s corporation when his mother flew in from Pennsylvania to visit one of her five sons. Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas also happened to be in the area at that same time to visit his fast food restaurants. Duty called and Steve had little time to spend with his mother during her visit.

When it came time for mom to return home to Danville, she startled her son during their airport goodbyes by telling him that he was not happy and he should return home to finish his degree. Steve told her he would think about it, mostly as a way to get her on the plane.

Two weeks later, Steve received a call that his mother was killed in an automobile accident.

McCloskey flew north for the funeral, and made the decision to return to Mansfield, re-enrolling as a 34-year-old college student determined to finish what he started.

Back at Mansfield, he became the student government president and editor of the student newspaper before the position for sports information director opened in the summer of 1988. He would beat out an assistant football coach for the job, which proved to be the best thing to happen for that football coach.

The runner-up took an assistant coaching job at Division III Wesley College in Dover, Delaware and was named head coach in 1993. Mike Drass went on to become one of the winningest football coaches in the nation, collecting 219 career wins and making 12 NCAA playoff appearances.

McCloskey quickly worked to put Mansfield on the map as the university’s first full-time SID while also still enrolled in classes. He met with local sports writers and television reporters to get the Mountaineer sports teams more coverage in the surrounding Corning/Elmira and Williamsport markets.
 

As SID, McCloskey helped Mansfield gain national recognition when the town and university celebrated the 100th anniversary of hosting the world’s first night football game in 1992. General Electric, who provided the power for the first night football game at Mansfield’s Smythe Park back in 1892, showcased the historic event with a commercial during Monday Night Football that fall.
McCloskey would become the conduit between Mansfield Athletics and its fans, covering Mountaineer baseball’s World Series runs, men’s basketball’s PSAC Championship, the 100th anniversary of men’s and women’s basketball, softball and field hockey ECAC titles along with many other unforgettable team and individual accomplishments.

At Mansfield for all the highs, and all the lows, the lowest point in McCloskey’s career came in 2006 when Mansfield dropped its Division II football program, citing budget concerns.

McCloskey took every phone call from angry alumni and parents as well as inquisitive journalists. He watched as all 72 members of the football team reported to practice on a cold, wet October day just hours after learning the program would cease to exist following its final game two weeks later. A moment he will never forget.

McCloskey then was instrumental in bringing football back to Mansfield two years later — in the form of sprint football — to carry on the legacy of so many players who wore the red and black prior.

When Mansfield installed lights at Karl Van Norman Field in 2013, McCloskey, like so many times before in his career, seized an opportunity. The birthplace of night football would host its first home night game in 121 years and he wanted the world to know.
With the help of countless campus and community members, Mansfield put on a show with Sept. 14, 2013 “Light Up Mansfield Again” events. The Mountaineer field hockey team set an NCAA Division II attendance record with 2,011 fans filing into Van Norman Field to watch the Mansfield-Shippensburg match before the sprint football team kicked off against Princeton. That was in front of a record 6,223 fans with thousands more watching on regional television and ESPN3.

The event made headlines from the NCAA Champion Magazine to Newsday and out to the Juneau Empire in Alaska.
Mansfield may be a sleepy town next to a highway for some people, but it’s always been the center of the universe for Steve McCloskey. He’ll tell anyone that all the best things in his life are because of Mansfield, including his wife Pam, who’s also a Mansfield University graduate.

That devotion to Mansfield from its now-retired sports information director has helped produce dozens of future SIDs who all learned the craft from McCloskey. It’s also made him one of the most decorated SIDs, receiving numerous awards from ECAC-SIDA and CoSIDA, although he would never admit to deserving any of the accolades.

McCloskey’s daughter Katey Grace, a sophomore at West Chester University, can be found inputting statistics during home games for the Golden Rams. His son Zach will attend Mansfield this fall and all will be right in the world with a McCloskey back in the sports information office.

It’s not easy to be a sports information director. The job brings long hours, high stress, and little appreciation. That never mattered to McCloskey, who just wanted to tell the world about his beloved alma mater.





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