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Alan Cannon (Texas A&M University) – Arch Ward Award
by Pete Moore, Syracuse University Director of Athletic Communications/CoSIDA Special Awards Committee member
 

When is a game day football press box like a back yard family barbecue?
 
When the press box is at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, and the host is Alan Cannon.
 
A formal introduction would inform that Cannon is an Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations at Texas A&M; however, a formal introduction doesn’t fit “A.C.” Just a few minutes spent with him evaporates the impression of a university administrator with a long title and puts you in touch with a guy who would seem completely comfortable chatting you up while turning over burgers on a grill at the aforementioned barbecue.
 
Cannon is folksy. He’s as friendly and welcoming as can be. He’s got as much Aggie blood pumping through his veins as any representative of the Texas A&M athletic department past or present. Cannon is an institution at the institution.
 
And a well-deserved honoree of the 2018 CoSIDA Arch Ward Award, which annually recognizes a CoSIDA member who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college sports information, and who by his or her activities, has brought dignity and prestige to the profession.
 
“I have known Alan since he and I became sports information directors at our respective
institutions within eight months of each other in the late 1980s,” said Herb Vincent, an Associate Commissioner with the Southeastern Conference and current CoSIDA second vice president. “I have never known Alan to not have a smile on his face, offer a helping hand to anyone who needs it, or to be enthused about his job each and every time I have the good fortune to talk with him.”
 
Most media who find themselves in the Kyle Field press box are there to do a job – report on an Aggie football game – but with Cannon as host it can’t hardly seem like a job. Let’s just say Cannon and his crew of A&M media relations staff are going to make you feel at home. They’re going to do whatever they can to help the media have a smooth day of it.
 
Cannon had a somewhat modest beginning at Texas A&M. He enrolled in 1980 and walked on the Aggie baseball team. While tending to his studies, Cannon happened upon the Aggie sports information office and its director Spec Gammon. Soon he was “all in” as a student assistant and he’s been a fixture in the office ever since. He earned a marketing degree from TAMU in 1984.
  In 1985, he was hired as an assistant SID and in 1989 Texas A&M named him sports information director. Cannon was promoted to assistant athletics director for media relations in 1999 and in 2003 was appointed to his current position.
 
In addition to serving his alma mater for all these years, Cannon also took on a leadership role with the CoSIDA at the encouragement of two of his mentors — Bill Little (Texas) and Doug Vance (Kansas). He was part of the organization’s officer rotation and was CoSIDA President in 2002-03. Cannon presided over the 2003 Convention held in Cleveland.
 
Cannon proved to be an effective CoSIDA leader. An engaged listener and thoughtful speaker, Cannon was successful at building board-room consensus and then articulating the plan to the group’s membership. Cannon was inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame in 2014.
 
Cannon is also a past president of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and was named the recipient of the organization’s Wilbur Snypp Award in 1999. He owns membership in the Football Writers Association of America. The All-America Football Foundation presented him with the Scoop Hudgens Lifetime Sports Information Director Award in 1999.
 
Over the course of Cannon’s 38 years in the media relations profession at Texas A&M, he has been on the front lines in good and bad times. One of his staff members, Brad Marquardt, noted that Cannon has been the primary media contact for the winningest football coach (R.C. Slocum), men’s basketball coach (Dr. Shelby Metcalf) and baseball coach (Mark Johnson) in Aggie history.
 
Cannon was at the helm at the time of one of the school’s greatest tragedies – the death of 12 students during an Aggie Rally in 1999. He had no busier time than when Johnny Manziel was a Heisman Trophy winner at A&M.
 
“A.C.’s goal in every instance has been to put Texas A&M University and its greatest resource – its student-athletes, in the best light possible,” said Marquardt, who has worked on Cannon’s media relations team for more than 25 years.
 
Cannon’s folksy nature puts him in a great light whether he is talking to a local reporter or someone like George H. W. Bush, the former President of the United States. Anyone who knows Cannon understands his job involves interaction with the media but he’s also sat down and chatted with President Bush, who has his presidential library on the Texas A&M campus. Cannon comes across kind and engaged in any setting.
 
Don’t underestimate his professional fashion sense either. Cannon’s more than capable of representing Aggie Nation in shorts and an A&M golf shirt (say, football practice), a sport coat and tie (for an on-campus press conference) or a tuxedo (as he did at the Heisman Trophy ceremony).
 
While it’s clear Cannon wears his Aggie affiliation on his sleeve, he’s also completely devoted to his family – his wife, Kaye, and his daughters Katie and Macie. There was no prouder pop in the house when Katie Cannon performed with the Aggie Dance Team at Texas A&M football and basketball home games. Macie is captain of the Bengal Belles, a dance team at A&M Consolidated High School.
 
What you see is what you get with “A.C.” Those whose paths have crossed with his are just fine with that.