College Sports Information Directors of America

"Katie is a rising star in intercollegiate athletic administration. Her enthusiasm, energy and willingness to go the extra mile for our student-athletes makes a direct impact on each of the teams that she works with on a daily basis. I'm grateful to have Katie as part of the Eastern Michigan Athletics team and I look forward to continuing to watch her grow as a professional."
- Scott Wetherbee, Director of Athetlics, Eastern Michigan University

In her young tenure as an athletic communications assistant director, Katie Gonzales has jumped in and gotten involved - heavily - with CoSIDA committee work and mentorship programs at Eastern Michigan, the Mid-America Conference, and at CoSIDA.

A 2018 CoSIDA Convention Attendance grant recipient, Gonzales was one of 22 from around the country selected to receive the honor to attend last year's convention outside of D.C. She is in her second year at Eastern Michigan University as an assistant director of athletic media relations.

In her volunteer work with CoSIDA, Gonzales is a member of two-year old Diversity and Inclusion Committee and also serves on the Academic All-America committee as a district coordinator, handling Division III men's soccer and baseball nominations.

Gonzales was promoted to her current EMU role after a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at the school. She was selected the 2017 EMU Sport Management Major Student of the Year. Gonzales is a graduate of Loras College where, as a double major in math and sport management, she learned the athletic media relations ropes while serving as a student assistant from 2012-15.

Give a quick summary of your responsibilities at Eastern Michigan ...
I'm our secondary contact with football and the primary SID with women's basketball, so I'm juggling a lot right now! Our communications team is led by Greg Steiner. He's been in the business almost 20 years and is a pros pro. He gives us lots of opportunities and is a great teacher, and he knows how to help us balance things, like working ahead, doing media guides in the summer, building notes outlines and packages early so they are set to go. We are all navigating the crossover seasons right now, but the fact that we have such a strong connected office team has made a pretty big difference for us.

Many people wait a few years into their careers before delving into committee work. You've taken on responsibilities in two CoSIDA committees, the Academic All-America and Diversity & Inclusion committees. What impact has this work had on you?
Why committee work? I want to give back and the Academic All-America program is essential and involves our most important assets - the student-athletes.

I feel like the Diversity and Inclusion Committee is already doing important work and outreach in its second year, and I wanted to be involved, especially based on my personal life and my professional experiences so far.

I had a situation my first year at Eastern Michigan. We were playing a conference opponent in soccer and their SID did not travel. I asked their athletic trainer for pronunciations, and I got to their goalkeeper and the trainer says 'the goalkeeper prefers to go by Lucas'; the name on the roster was Annabelle. I said, absolutely no problem. I was doing the PA and read the starting lineups and said Lucas. Postgame, the athletic trainer found me and said, "Thank you for doing that. This is the first school to do what the student-athlete preferred." Mind you, it was game 16 of 20 and this was the first time this student-athlete had the preferred name pronounced correctly. That has stuck with me.

Also, being a female, and a gay Mexican female, puts me in a small minority in our profession. It's important to tell stories of student-athletes who might not be understood correctly; it is also important to tell the stories and support the same within our CoSIDA membership.

More will evolve. We've begun dialogue in many ways. Committee member Mark LaFrance of Geroge Mason is a great advocate. I hope people read Mark's article in the current CoSIDA 360 magazine article (What's In A Word: Pronoun Usage and the LGBTQA Community).

We are really starting to get brainstorming and ideas for the convention. Working with Rob (Knox) as our African-American president, we are embracing the differences of everyone in the membership. Knowing our committee is working on these issues and making safe spaces, makes it all worthwhile.

I watched the work that the NCAA did during its Inclusion Week, too. It's important to also know how to work with the student-athletes who have disabilities and who are overcoming obstacles and how best to tell their stories.

As an undergraduate at Loras College, you were part of the sports management program's team which competed in case studies, analytics and Sabrmetics. What was that experience like?
I went to Division III Loras and was a double major in math and sport management. I worked in the sports information office for (Director of Athletic Communications) Jim Naprstek, one of my mentors, when he came to Loras my senior year. I also participated in national sports management competitions.

We had tryouts for our nationally-recognized sport management team that traveled the country, competing in case studies and attending sports management marketing conferences. We'd go up against the likes of Stanford, Duke, Ohio University, UMass, the University of Chicago Booth (business school). It was intense and fun! I competed for three years. One competition was on Sabrmetics - the analytics behind baseball. A group of four of us Loras students went to Arizona in spring training for a conference and had to come up with who the top three best pitching prospects in baseball were, based on contracts, age curves, and forecasting out careers over extensions of their contracts. There are models of forecasting, and we had to defend our methods. It was a very good challenge as part of the Golden Case Study (Society for Baseball Research), with two scouts and an analytics guy on the judging committee to question you. It was like presenting a dissertation and you had to defend it. We happened to nail it. We had some good successes on that team!

What do you enjoy the most about the athletic communications profession?
I love building relationship with coworkers, coaches and the student-athletes. My favorite part is telling stories and getting to know coaches and athletes and finding platforms to help them showcase those stories. I'm proud to say that five of my student-athletes have interned with us because they see what we do and they want to learn more about the profession.

You also are part of the CoSIDA mentorship program this year ...
Yes, my mentor is Meredith Rieder from Duke. She's been tremendous for me to bounce things off of so far.

Speaking of mentorship, you've gotten involved in the Mid-American Conference Diversity & Inclusion Mentorship program. Talk about that experience.
I was fortunate to be selected to Mid-American Conference Diversity & Inclusion Mentorship program last fall. Our AD, Scott Weatherby and Erin Kido, our Senior Woman Administrator, were contacted by MAAC and they said needed a young professional in our department for the program. Erin and I had gotten to know each other in the family atmosphere that she and Scott have created, and she said - we want you on this. I went to MAC spring meetings with them and sat in the AD and SWA rooms when they were talking about basketball scheduling, championships, hosting, and things like that. I met lots of people and was able to learn and network with some of the best in athletics.

Between that experience, I spend time with our Senior Associate AD of External Affairs Andy Rowdon. He is very forward-thinking, and I go out to lunch with him. He has a good grasp of the work we do in our office. Those conversations have helped me think about Director of External Relations positions and the SWA position down the line.

You've talked about the importance of working in a positive environment, and Eastern Michigan fits that bill for you.
The people who you work with matter. To me, a positive culture and support is what makes the biggest difference in choosing where to work. Yes, it is such a supportive environment here. I actually have a long-distance relationship, with my wife Cat is in medical school in Illinois. If we are going to be apart, we know it helps to have supportive people and family where we are. The culture here is amazing. The soccer coaches treat me and the soccer athlete trainer and the GA in a genuine fashion and make us feel part of the soccer family. Our athletic department has a four-year tradition of getting together at 9 p.m. each Thursday night for trivia night at a local restaurant/pub. We set the time at 9 p.m. so there are no excuses - you know when to get the work done and come join in to unwind.

I'll tell a quick story. I went to coffee with my colleague (graduate assistant) Maddie Heaps last week. She, like all of us, has certain career aspirations and I said, I don't want to say this in a bad way, but not every place will have the culture we have here. You need to work with good people and enjoy it. I never question if I'm going to have a good day. When I walk into our EMU office I know we will joke, support, grab lunch. Culture is more important than anything. It is inspiring to go to work here.