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CoSIDA.com/ThankYourSID
This feature is part of our series of profiles showcasing members throughout the CoSIDA membership during the celebration of CoSIDA Membership Recognition Week for 2018. See more features at CoSIDA.com/ThankYourSID.
Tony Jones – University of Notre Dame Assistant Athletics Communications Director
by Scott Eddy – St. Bonaventure, Director of Athletics Communications
At the February 2018 Kajikawa Classic softball
tournament in Tempe, Arizona.
“You don’t always think about the profound impact we have on people – the student-athletes, the student managers, the families.”
- Tony Jones
Sitting on the desk of
Tony Jones is a document that, at first glance, might seem like a project he could be working on as part of his duties as an athletics communications assistant director at the University of Notre Dame.
It’s a Heisman Trophy campaign with the contact information for “Tony Jones, Notre Dame Sports Information.”
Only at second glance would it strike a second thought for the viewer; the centerpiece for the campaign is Jimmy Clausen and the math doesn’t quite add up, as anyone who knows Jones would realize he was still an undergraduate at a school eight hours away when former Irish star Clausen was entering the NFL.
The document is actually a class project that represented a dream Jones had as a student – one that he realizes each day as a fixture in the Irish athletic department. Jones counts research and statistical analysis as one of his growing roles with football and he also serves as the primary communication contact for Notre Dame softball. These are two of his main responsibilities, while at one time or another he has had a direct hand in all but one of the University’s 26 sports since joining the staff in 2012.
Jones’ mock Heisman campaign helped fuel an interest in sports information while he was a student at St. Bonaventure University. Always an avid fan of sports – Irish football included – he envisioned himself perhaps working at ESPN or with a professional sports franchise.
It wasn’t until he took a course taught by Pat Pierson, then the SID at St. Bonaventure and now the Associate Athletic Director for Communications at Oregon, that he began to know about the exact work of an SID office.
“At that point in time I hadn’t thought about working in the profession; I didn’t know much about sports information and PR,” Jones remembers. “I gave the class a try and the way Pat presented everything was intriguing; hearing how he worked with local media and what his relationship was with coaches was something that was very interesting.”
The final project for the course – his mock Heisman campaign – in part led Pierson to offer Jones a spot as a student intern in the Bonnies’ office. Jones worked his final two years as an undergraduate assisting St. Bonaventure communications and gaining vital hands-on experience.
Jones with Notre Dame softball associate coach
Kris Ganeff.
Along with his work at Bonaventure, he built his resume by earning internships with the Buffalo Bills and with his hometown minor league baseball team. Jones was searching for a job following graduation when his phone rang late in the summer. It was a call and job offer from Adam Prendergast, then the head SID at Louisiana-Monroe who now runs the athletic communications office at fellow Sun Belt Conference member Troy.
After a year working with women’s basketball, football and baseball at ULM, Jones got the call from Notre Dame about an internship – and he thought back to his undergraduate Heisman campaign in his interviews with the Irish communications staff.
“It’s still on my desk to this day. It’s funny how it’s come full circle from that point,” he said.
Since then, Jones has been a primary contact for Irish fencing, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s golf, tennis, swimming and softball. Heading for his seventh season with Notre Dame softball, he’s been with that program longer than any other current member of the ND office has covered one of the department’s individual teams.
“I’ve enjoyed working with all of our teams, but being with softball all this time and being able to look back and see the impact the program has had on me is really special,” he said. “It’s been extremely fulfilling work.”
That longevity has given Jones a different perspective than he may have had when first entering the business a decade ago.
“You don’t always think about the profound impact we have on people – the student-athletes, the student managers, the families,” he notes.
Jones’ work with Notre Dame’s Olympic sports earned him an expanded spot helping with the football staff this season. Notre Dame re-structured its Athletics Communications Office prior to this academic year to take a more centered approach in both student-athlete brand advancement and statistics and information gathering – a project Jones has played a big part in, helping research for the department’s coverage of its world-renowned football program.
“I’ve taken a bigger lead in stats and research in the office and as part of that I more or less coordinate all football notes production, helping lift that weight off our two main football contacts,” he said. “The PR end of that role is more or less a full-time gig for those guys. We’re trying to do something that frees up people to do more with media and content creation. That’s where this business is going and something we’re embracing head-on.”
And, as with working with any program that is as heavily scrutinized and constantly under the media spotlight as is top-five ranked Notre Dame football, there’s a certain level of pressure that accompanies the job. It’s something that accompanies every Irish sport and is a fact of life that pushes Jones and his co-workers to be their best each day.
“Every one of our 26 teams is nationally competitive, so there’s no off-season. It keeps you on your toes. It isn’t for everybody, and it can be intimidating,” he said.
It’s an opportunity Jones doesn’t take for granted, living out the dream he had for himself years ago.
“Notre Dame is a special place,” he emphasized. “You have to pinch yourself sometimes. Being here never gets old, there are many moments where you realize how neat the opportunity to work here really is.”