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Tom McClellan (East Carolina University) – 25-Year Award
by Joe Corley, ECUPirates.com
Sunset at the beach during the 2013 Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl in
St. Petersburg, Fla.; McClellan with his daughter Jessica
and wife Joanne.
Tom McClellan’s outward appearance, even during the heat of the action, masks a whirlwind of business within.
That appearance is one of calm, ease and confidence, whether he’s walking the halls near his office in the Ward Sports Medicine Building at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., or overseeing the press conference after a football game in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. With 30 years of experience in athletics communications, McClellan is a classic professional who takes pride in his work.
“Outwardly, yes, I appear to be even-keeled, but inside I’m not,” said McClellan, the Assistant Athletics Director for Media Relations at ECU. “I think it’s the fact that I’ve been doing this so long. And there’s good and bad to that. The good is, I’m a big believer about maintaining a professional approach at all times, whether they be great moments or bad moments. I’m not going to kick over a trashcan if we lose, and I’m not going to jump up and down if we win. I just don’t think that’s part of our job.
“The bad part of that is sometimes it could maybe make coaches or players think, ‘You really don’t care if we win. You have the same expression on your face.’ I have to tell them I’m doing my job. It’s all about being professional. I’m always thinking ahead to, ‘What am I going to face next?’ or, ‘What’s the next job?’”
McClellan, who in 2009 and 2014 was selected as a Super 11 Team member (top 11 FBS sports information offices for outstanding service provided) by the Football Writers Association of America, has seen plenty of winning and losing. This dates from his time at Georgia Southern from 1996 to 2004 when he was directly a part of two of the school’s six NCAA Division I-AA national championships in football, to the current ups and downs of the football program at ECU, where he has been since 2004.
“What I’ll do is I’ll find (ECU Head Coach Scottie Montgomery) and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got radio after you talk to the team, then we’ve got the post-game press conference upstairs, here’s what to anticipate, go over potential talking points, etc.’ I’ve got to have him prepared. To me, that’s my job.”
McClellan, a 1987 graduate of Sam Houston State University, spent one year at Sam Houston as a staff assistant before accepting his first full-time job at Georgia Southern where he worked primarily with men’s basketball from 1988-92. He then went to Stetson in the summer of 1992, where he was host media coordinator for the first and second rounds of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament in 1993 and 1996. In 1996 he headed back to Georgia Southern for the opportunity to oversee all football media relations operations.
Those he met along the way helped shape who he has become. The first of those was Matt Rogers, initially as a student assistant at Sam Houston State.
“He could come across very direct, but looking back, he taught me what was right and what was wrong in this profession, what my demeanor should be,” McClellan said. “Matt was probably the first to continuously drill the service-first mindset in my approach and taught me a lot about the skill of crisis management.”
McClellan, who in 1997 earned SHSU’s Distinguished Journalism Alumni Award, also counts himself as fortunate to have met and worked with Alfred White at a young age. White, currently is the senior director of marketing and strategic partnerships for the College Football Playoff, was the commissioner of the Southern Conference when McClellan was at Georgia Southern. White later was associate commissioner of Conference USA, of which ECU was a member from 1997-2013 before making its move to the American Athletic Conference.
“I’ve always admired and respected Alfred deeply for how he went about his business and how he dealt with people,” McClellan said. “I’ll also forever owe him a debt a gratitude for playing a pivotal role in securing my first job in the profession. It’s all about contacts and Alfred ranks at the top of the list.”
“I also really enjoyed working with the ADs at different places, beginning with Jeff Altier at Stetson and Sam Baker at Georgia Southern. Jeff’s undying patience with a young ‘know-it-all’ allowed me to mature and Sam always understood and genuinely appreciated the value of what we do. And I don’t think anyone was better with people than Terry Holland at ECU. I saw how he dealt with everyone, from small donors to big donors, to media, to coaches, to students-athletes. He impacted me in how to treat people with respect and how important relationships are. I learned a lot simply by watching him interact with and lead others.”
McClellan also mentioned his admiration for long-time Georgia publicist Claude Felton as someone who made a distinct impression on him from afar, especially in the people skills area.
During his 30 years, McClellan has seen many changes in the athletic communications profession.
“The technology evolves everyday, and that’s probably the biggest thing for me,” he said. “When I started we still dealt with six-minutes-per-page telecopiers. Then we were thrilled to get a fax machine, which sped things up. Then was the advent of email and PDFs. In telling our stories, there are so many more avenues and platforms now than there used to be.
“I’ve never been a person who has enjoyed the tech end of it. I’ve always been a big believer that our business is about relationships and about always remaining in a customer service mindset. That said, I understand the opportunities that digital communication offers us now, and I’m very receptive to it, but I don’t want it to come at a cost of relationship-building. I think that’s critical. We’re in the people business, so it’s still about relationships and serving others.
“Unfortunately, many don’t see the value in building trust and credibility until they’re faced with a crisis situation, and then quite frankly, it’s too late,” McClellan added.
One constant has been the presence of his wife, Joanne, in the press box. She handles the statistics for ECU’s football, men’s basketball and baseball teams, just as she did at Georgia Southern.
“I’m very blessed and so thankful for her support,” McClellan said. “We’ve been together as a couple, best friends and team, both figuratively and literally, for over 30 years. She chose to be a part of this crazy life and the hours that come with it, even to the point where she has her own gig in the summers handling American Legion Regionals and the World Series each year.
“Both of us are also exceptionally proud of our daughter Jessica and her journey, which will open a new chapter after she graduates from UNC-Wilmington next year. Our conversations during Jessica’s club volleyball trips up and down the East Coast during the winters will always be a cherished memory of mine.”