College Sports Information Directors of America

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• Previous Women to Watch Features: March: Jolisa Williams, Shaw  |  February: Jill Guise, John Hopkins  |  January: Natalie Davis, Co-Lin  |  December: Sammi Wellman, California Baptist  |  November: Jenna Willhoit, Dayton

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  WoSIDA Women to Watch: April 2018
Mary Beth Challoner, Manager Events & Marketing
University of Toronto
by Wendy Mayer, CoSIDA Programming Committee

 

How did you get into sports information?

I got in as a student-athlete. I was here at the University of Toronto playing ice hockey and I did a work-study term with the sports information director at the time, Paul Carson. So that is how it started many, many moons ago. I was always interested in sports and he kind of combined everything for me and it put me on a new path. I came into school being an athlete and then a student because I didn’t know what I wanted to do after the university life and Paul Carson really kind of put me on that trajectory of this world of collegiate sports information.

You are in a unique position of being able to publicize and draw attention to your alma mater, a place where you also played women’s hockey? How has that shaped your experience and how you do your job because you are intimately connected with the alumni base and it is home for you?

I think it provides a lot of background and innate passion for the institution. It wasn’t something I had to come in and learn. I know of the program and obviously the historical significance of and relevance of this institution and its athletic programs dating back 100 years. I knew its rich history, I didn’t have to come in and learn it; it was already kind of in me, innate if you will. I think that helps right off the bat, because then you just have to learn the role a little bit more and get the lay of the land.

I was here as a student and I actually left for 10 years and came back in a working position. I had gone out and done some investigating and then I came back, so it was like coming home in a sense. A lot of people that were working here were still here from when I left as a student-athlete. It was again easy to jump back in and rekindle those relationships, but now in a different sense as a professional, not as a student. I think the transition from working externally to coming back to the university made it easier.

Also, you have that sense of pride already in wanting to push forth in making sure that programs are promoted in a good light, that you do a good job. I don’t know, maybe you feel a bit more responsibility to make sure that everything is perfect and is pushed in the right way and people/student-athletes know about your programs because you have that close connection to the school. I have that sense of pride instilled since I was 18 years old and I think that helped when I came back to work here. 

At one time, you handled more than 44 sports by yourself and also served in a marketing role as well. How did you handle all of that?

It a nutshell, it doesn’t get handled as well. There are a lot of details and things that you want to do that you can’t do, so it frustrating. But, that has been a while ago. They gave me a portfolio that was very large and it was verging on a sense of impossible to manage everything, especially with the breadth of programming and the size of our programs here. Since then, I have gained some staff and now I actually have a team of five full-timers that work under me in various aspects of sports information and on the marketing and promotions side.

There are 44 teams and we have as many as 850 to 900 student-athletes in 24 different sports. We now have a sport model in place where we have established the amount of resources and time spent on specific sports and the ways we market different sports. We have what we call the blue and white sports, which are more at a club level or provincial level and they just get different services, and that makes it a lot more manageable. Everybody knows what they are getting and we can refer back to the sport model and say this is what you get on a yearly basis during your competition season, etc. It is a bit more defined and there is a bit more of a process to it now, which makes it a little bit easier to manage, along with the additional staff that I have now. 

As you look back on your more than 11 years in the business, how have things changed in the business and in your role?

It is the evolution of sports information, which is essentially what I would call and a lot of people are now calling athletic communications. It is no longer just about stats. There is so much more that the communications team does within the larger varsity program. I always tell my staff that there is really a joint line between marketing and communications. They work hand in hand in a lot of things. Sports information is now an umbrella of the sports communications portfolio, but there is so much more.

Really as much as you don’t want it to be, as much as you still try to find a personal balance, there is no down time anymore, there are no offseasons anymore. It is 12-month a year programming. We have teams that go year round. Even in the offseason you keep track of international meets and Olympic meets and the next thing you know they are going into spring camps and preseason training camps and exhibition series. With the monthly evolving of social media and trying to keep up with that, we are finding that is a job in itself and more and more people are hiring dedicated professionals just to handle the load of what that is bringing to us.

It has definitely evolved and it has evolved quicker than I thought it would. There are just a lot more facets. It is much more than sports information.

 

One of the fun things about the job are all of the championships and moments we get to be a part of… what is your most memorable moment as an SID? Who is the most well-known student-athlete or coach you have worked with?

I have been very fortunate the last couple of years that we have an international swimmer who is a world champion and world record holder, and her name is Kylie Masse. I think working with Kylie as she came in a freshman to where she became a world champion and world record holder in her third year … and this might take it out of the realm of sport, but in Canada we talk a lot about keeping Canadians in school because of the attraction down in the U.S. Kylie chose a Canadian institution and has flourished at the international level. So, to have worked with that young student as she came in and to see her blossom into this world champion is amazing. So, that would be one.

Another example would be the women’s volleyball team which won a national championship in 2015. They had a perfect season and it was the first time in 40 years that someone from the OUA, from our province and our conference, had won the national championship. The Western teams are very dominant, especially in women’s volleyball, so seeing that come full circle for them, that was an amazing feat.

But for me, on a whole, one of the biggest things was my first cycle of student-athletes, where you see them come in as freshman and four to five years later, they are graduating. That is truly what I love about this job is the development of these young people. They come in and some are scared, some are nervous and some come in with high hopes and they reevaluate throughout. It is just the growth and maturity of these young men and women.

One of the things I am always tickled about is that first cycle of student-athletes. I was really verklempt when they all graduated because I had been with them from when they came in at 17 or 18 years old. That is a special time for me and I always get very nostalgic and reminiscent during graduation time after seeing them through that maturity cycle.

We have built new buildings, we have hosted international events here and we had the NBA All-Star weekend here, so there are many great things that I am proud to be a part of, but I think working with these young men and women and seeing them through their first cycle might be the yearly highlight for me.

 

What makes being a Canadian or USports SID different from a traditional NCAA-based SID?

I don’t think it changes the job per se. There are definitely some major differences. When you are talking about your major Division I programs or even Division II programs getting television based on where the TV market has gone, with SEC TV and Big Ten Network, we don’t have those kinds of television opportunities. The biggest difference is the media coverage and the national media coverage that we don’t have. We actually have to push out a lot of our own coverage. We have try to get it on national networks or webcast it differently, so we do a lot of our own work, continuous work in that field to try to get our programs on a national scale. Pushing them nationally for us can be difficult or even sometimes in our own market.

 But, I have found that when you go down to a conference like CoSIDA, that there are a lot of the same things. Two years ago I sat within a group of people that work at colleges within big markets – I am in Toronto and I was talking with people at Columbia in New York or schools in the Boston area, where there are a lot of things going on, where there are professional sports teams -- and we all had the same issues. We are not in Ann Arbor or small college town USA where the school is everything to that community, so you have to find different ways to push things out because you are not the cat’s meow. I can align myself with those schools and universities quite well in terms of ways to promote your school, your program and your brand and getting the message out there about your student-athletes.

There are some unique differences, but I wouldn’t say it changes a whole lot. Depending on the program and the division, because of the breadth of our program where we have one or two people covering the whole gamut, whereas some have one or two people per sport, we may have to divide our time a bit differently. But really, a lot of the basic job elements are the same.

Also, the money in collegiate sport in Canada is dramatically different than what you have in the states. So, money, television and media opportunities, if you will, those are three of the biggest differences that we struggle with a lot that can be very frustrating.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

We are a small but mighty staff at most of the Canadian universities. We are one of the biggest in Canada. I am not knocking anyone working at a U.S. school, but the passion and dedication you have to have here with the hours, especially when we don’t necessarily see it all come to fruition the ways some schools do…

But, my staff in particular here is very dedicated to the student-athlete and the varsity programs and ensuring that they are reported on, promoted and that we can get the best we can for the student-athletes and coaches that we have here. They are a great advocate for this institution and for collegiate sport across the board. All I can do is thank them for their time and dedication. They give a lot of their time and of themselves, their hearts and their minds every day. It is a wonderful place we work here, frustrating at times, but there are so many rewards that come from it in the end that make it all worth it.