Related Stories
•
2018 Special Awards Annoucements and Features
•
#CoSIDA18 Headquarters |
Register for #CoSIDA18
Nordy Jensen (Western Athletic Conference, retired) – 25-Year Award
by Ralph Zobell, BYU Director of Media Relations- Baseball
Jensen and his wife of nearly 52 years, Alice.
Legends in our profession have gone by nicknames of “Scoop” and “Skeeter,” but few like
Nordy Jensen are nationally known without mention of their surname.
Nordy has already been
inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2016 after serving as president of CoSIDA in 1984-85, so it is a well-deserved after thought for him to receive its 25-year award.
His proper name is Nels Nordestgaard Jensen Jr., but his Danish grandmother recommended he go by the name of Nordy to avoid confusion with his father. Nordy is how he was always known as he performed his SID duties.
Nordy’s 23 official years of service in the sports information field plus more than 10 years in college publicity when he did SID work on the side for two other institutions is surpassed only by his countless contributions to the profession.
He helped establish the foundation for press operations for the Fiesta and Holiday Bowls.
One of his behind-the-scenes “touches” was orchestrating a press conference with football coaches LaVell Edwards of BYU and Bo Schembechler of Michigan the morning after the bowl in San Diego. Nordy, with former CoSIDA President Dave Schulthess (1980), gathered national media still in town on that December day after BYU football finished its 13-0 season to help solidify support for its eventual 1984 national championship.
"Nordy was a great asset for two outstanding Western Athletic Conference commissioners (Stan Bates and Joe Kearney) as their right-hand man," said personal friend Glen Tuckett, former director of athletics at BYU and Alabama. "Nordy was always the ‘go-to guy’ when you needed something done. He always did it promptly, efficiently and professionally.”
In 1979 when Magic Johnson of Michigan State and Larry Bird of Indiana State played against each other in the NCAA men’s basketball championship at Salt Lake City, Nordy worked alongside host Utah SID Bruce “Woody” Woodbury, another long-time friend.
“At Utah we have hosted many NCAA tournaments, including the 1979 Final Four,” Woodbury said. “Nordy has been a vital part of each of those tournaments. In fact, we owe much of the tournaments’ successes to Nordy’s expertise.”
“My first association with him came while he was at Arizona State,” said Kevin McKinney, now Senior Associate AD for External Affairs at the University of Wyoming athletic department. “I was a young assistant at the university, getting my feet wet in the business of “advancing.” It was during that time that I began to fully appreciate Nordy.
“When Wyoming played Arizona State and my advance took me to Tempe, he was kind enough to take me under his wing and help me with the nuances of working with media from a much larger market. It was at this time that I also observed how well-respected he was with his media and his coaches.”
“I was thrilled when Nordy was hired by the Western Athletic Conference as its media relations director,” McKinney said. “We worked closely together for a dozen years and my respect for him only grew. He handled his duties as the consummate professional. His work, his dedication and his ability to deal positively with a variety of personalities was always truly remarkable.”
He landed his first SID position at New Mexico State in 1964, where he met his wife Alice.
Nordy was the SID at San José State from 1965-68, where he helped publicize world-record holders Tommie Smith and Lee Evans, future Olympic gold medalist.
“They were very popular and I got to help
Sports Illustrated set up a cover photo and article for them,” Jensen said. Nordy also helped publicize a couple other world records for tracksters while working at Arizona State as its SID.
He returned to ASU to serve as its SID from 1968-1971 and got to publicize football coach Frank Kush again. Nordy was editor of the Casa Grande High School newspaper
Cougar Growl prior to being an SID intern at Arizona State University (1960-64) where he graduated in political science. As an ASU student and as its SID he spend many days escaping the desert heat at preseason Camp Tontozona with its famed Mt. Kush.
In 1972 Nordy moved to Kansas City for a one-year hiatus from SID work as the editor of the
NCAA News and assisted with the NCAA basketball championship and the College World Series.
Through his 14-year tenure at the WAC, he juggled a league with its original six charter members, which expanded to eight schools prior to Arizona and Arizona State leaving for the Pac-10 and then Air Force Academy, Hawaii and San Diego State were added.
He transitioned to the News Bureau side in 1985 when he left the WAC and joined joined Colorado School of Mines as Director of Public Affairs. But he found he couldn’t leave his second-nature SID work behind.
“While at Mines our public affairs office handled SID work which I did periodically when I couldn't fine a part-time person,” Nordy said.
From 1986-1995 Nordy also worked part-time for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in sports publicity, including driving to its basketball tournament in Pueblo, Colo., to work as the official scorer. In 1994 he authored paperback
Communicating About Intercollegiate Athletics, a compilation of notes from panel discussions and papers presented at a CASE convention.
He remained at CSM until 1996, then worked exclusively as Director of Communications and Marketing for the multi-campus Front Range Community College in Colorado until he retired in 2009.
“I have worked closely with Nordy for almost 50 years, UW’s McKinney said. “His dedication to the media relations business, his loyalty and his work ethic have been second to none.”
Woodbury, now retired from Utah added, “I have worked with him for almost 40 years. He has spent countless hours helping SIDs throughout the country. For Nordy it was more than a job, it was a love of the people with whom he worked.”
In Danish, Nordy’s proper middle name means “farmer in the north.” Nordy made the “ground” more fertile for several SIDs like Woody, Schulthess, McKinney, Bill Young, Tim Simmons, Gary Ozzello, Eddie Groth and me.