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Nick Joos (University of Missouri) – 25-Year Award
by Rob Knox, Towson University Associate Director of Media Relations
Nick and his wife, Jill, are the parents of two children, Christopher and Jenna.
Like many who work in athletic communications,
Nick Joos has saved credentials, game programs, and photos from his nearly 30 years in the profession.
However, he has a memento that fills him with pride.
“I have the rooming list from my first basketball trip I took as a student at Iowa State,” Joos, the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications at the University of Missouri, reflected recently.
While it may seem like a crumpled up piece of paper with fancy handwriting on it to many, that souvenir serves as a significant reminder for Joos, who has spent his career paying it forward.
It’s his personal tribute to Butch Henry, Kirk Hendrix and Dave Starr of Iowa State and Tom Simons, Chris Anderson and Don Bryant of Nebraska.
“Somebody gave me a chance,” Joos said. “The best way to honor those who gave me an opportunity is by giving other people chances that work for me. It’s how I’ve been taught.”
During his distinguished career that started at Iowa State as a freshman student, Joos has mentored, led, served, collected, and achieved. He’s one of 30 outstanding professionals to be recognized with 25-Year Awards, singling a quarter of a century (or more) of work in collegiate athletic communications. The honors will be presented at the annual 2018 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) convention this June in National Harbor, Maryland.
Joos is a CoSIDA past president, serving on the Board of Directors for numerous years before ascending to the top of the organization’s volunteer leadership position in 2008-09 while serving at Baylor University.
One of Joos’ biggest accomplishments during his career was spearheading the organization's hybrid relationship with the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). In addition to serving nine years overall on the CoSIDA Board of Directors, Joos was enshrined into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2014. He also was the 2015 Arch Ward Memorial Award winner for outstanding achievement in athletic communications.
While those honors are meaningful, Joos knows his career has served a more important purpose.
“Growing your people is really important to me,” Joos said. “It’s incumbent on us to grow the next generation of leaders and members. We have an opportunity and responsibility to pay that forward with the students who have shown to be interested while giving them opportunities. Here at Missouri, we took students with our basketball teams that traveled to the NCAA (men’s basketball tournament). This is very important to me because it reminds me that somebody invested in me and gave me that opportunity at Iowa State.”
While many of Joos’ former student workers and interns are now successful athletic communications professionals making meaningful impacts, he’s also thrilled with the growth of CoSIDA. Joos is happy knowing his vision of CoSIDA becoming a 365-day organization has become a reality.
“Our goal was to make CoSIDA more than just a convention,” Joos said. “It’s exceeded my expectations of what our organization could become. Our convention programming has been transformational and with our ability with NACDA to have some crossover programming has elevated the organization to a different platform in my opinion. That’s the gratifying thing about what myself, Larry (Dougherty), Justin (Doherty) and Charles (Bloom) helped to put into place is it’s not only here, but it’s growing and getting better.”
Joos has spent his career improving and creating opportunities for others. He has been a passionate professional who has always been more concerned about other people than himself.
“I take great pride in that,” Joos said. “I like to think that I am easy to work for. I let people do their jobs and stay out of their business.”
Looking back at his career, Joos spent three years (2000-2003) directing the media relations office at the University of Massachusetts prior to his time at Baylor and now Missouri. At UMass, he served two years as Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations before being named Associate Athletic Director his final year.
Before moving to New England, Joos worked 13 years at the University of Nebraska. He spent one year as an intern (1987-88) in the Husker sports information office, then served as assistant sports information director (1988-94) and associate director (1994-95) for the Cornhuskers. Joos was the media relations contact for men's basketball and men's and women's track & field programs. He was the secondary football contact during his final two years in the office, and worked with the Huskers' 1994 national championship team.
All-told, he assisted with eight Husker football teams which earned bowl bids and 10 basketball teams which received postseason invitations. Joos' final five years at Nebraska were spent as director of men's basketball operations.
“All these experiences allowed me to learn about academics, compliance, budgeting, scheduling games, TV, and a lot of other different things,” Joos concluded. “In a job like this, it’s really important to have good family support. My wife Jill has been awesome throughout this journey. We met at Nebraska during the 1990-91 season and that led us to getting married. Spending time with family and finding ways to integrate them is really important.”