Photo: Shulimson with members of the 2019 Salem University women’s volleyball team (L-R) junior Alaina Weltz, sophomore Jalavia Johnson, sophomore Yesenia Munoz. Courtesy of David Shulimson.
David Shulimson, Sports Information Director at NCAA Division II Salem University (West Virginia), penned this editorial piece on experiencing the highs and lows of being an athletic communicator and how he has gained perspective about the job after undergoing battles of depression and times out of work. David offers sage advice and speaks with honesty and courage. A timely post on #WorldMentalHealth Day (Thursday, Oct. 10).
Shulimson began his SID role at Salem in early September. Previously he was Director of Athletics Communications at University of Mount Olive (N.C.), the Director of Public Relations for the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA), was the first full-time SID at Coker University. He also served on athletic communications staffs at Rollins College and was a student assistant at UCF. While at Mount Olive, he twice was a regional winner of the American Volleyball Coaches Association "Grant Burger Media Award" for outstanding coverage of college volleyball.
If Yogi Berra were still around to describe my post, he might be inclined to say, “It’s a long read, so you should probably bring a book.”
I just started an SID job a little over a month ago. I was told I would have my own graduate assistant, but that’s not going to happen, at least not this year. We have six fall sports teams, four of which I have rosters that list only names and jersey numbers. (No positions, years, hometowns, etc.) For one sport, I never saw a roster until 11 minutes before start time of our season opener. And I just discovered last week that the “roster” included only those players who dressed for that contest, so several players have been missing from the roster on our website. (Nobody bothered to tell me.) Same fall sports team just got team photos and headshots done last week. Three others still haven’t scheduled theirs. I discovered before hosting our volleyball home opener that Stat Crew was not an option for me, so I had to learn Genius/NLS on the fly.
After 20 years in the profession and having my own office, I now share an office with the athletics department graduate assistant. Temperatures have been in the 80’s and my office doesn’t have air conditioning.
So, how do I feel about getting this job?
GRATEFUL!!!
I’ll take those and more “99 problems” over my top three problems of just a few months ago:
1. Will I ever find a job again?
2. Do I have any reason to get out of bed today?
3. Is there any point for me to go on living?
I was first diagnosed with mild depression and anxiety nearly 10 years ago. It got a bit worse throughout the years and I was prescribed stronger and sometime additional prescriptions.
I got my first full-time SID job in 1994. I held my last SID job for more than 12 years before losing it under questionable circumstances. After two years of thinking that my savings would last forever, I lost everything. Lost my house and filed for bankruptcy. I ended up working jobs outside of college athletics: worked at a product assembly facility where my job was placing items in plastic bags and stapling headers onto them for eight hours a day; I was a cashier and bagger at a grocery store where I often had to check with a high school kid before clocking out; I worked in customer service in a department store.
I lived with various relatives for about a year. I had a bed (or futon) and a roof every night, but without a place to call my own, I considered myself homeless.
I had therapists, friends and family regularly ask me if I considered doing harm to myself. My answer wasn’t always “no”.
I was lucky that I had a good support system to help me find competent mental health resources to get both the counseling and medication I needed. I’ll never consider myself “cured,” but I’m a totally different person than I was just a few months ago.
So why am I writing here? Because as frustrating and irritating and nerve-wracking and demeaning and all-consuming as sports information/athletics communications can be, I don’t want anyone else to have to hit rock bottom to realize just how fortunate we are to be in this profession.
As athletics professionals, we’ve probably known or known of many kids who quit their sport because of an awful coach who took away their love of the game. And sometimes we deal with, or have dealt with, coaches and administrators who seem determined to take away our love for the profession.
We often have to remind ourselves that we didn’t get into sports information simply because we needed a job. This is a profession we actively pursued for various reasons. For me, it was a love of sports and to be honest, I was actually seeking a career in broadcasting when I discovered sports information. It quickly became more than just the sports. It was the connection with the student-athletes and playing at least a small role in their growth and their transition from kid to adult, from student to professional upon graduation. There are few things more special in this profession (or any position in academia) than working at a school for four years and seeing that freshman class you came in with graduate.
And as for the games, wasn’t that supposed to be the fun part of the job?
I regularly check the Facebook Things That Annoy SIDs group and the majority of the posts are legitimate issues. Yet, so many of the posts are what’s commonly known as “first world” problems. Are we really that upset that a soccer coach wants us to give an assist on a goal where the scorer “made a football move” before shooting?
As part of my recovery – which will always be a work in progress – I participated in group therapy and peer-run support groups. One of the rules was to phrase everything as “I” statements instead of “You” statements. “In my experience, I did this” instead of “You should do this.” I’ll try to follow that rule here, but forgive me if the “you” word slips out. Below are some things I’ve learned both from the job and from therapy that I wish to share.
1) Don’t Wait Until Hitting Rock Bottom To Appreciate the Profession We Are In
This is No. 1. This profession isn’t for everyone. If we’re looking for a job that provides us with daily respect, appreciation and an understanding of what we do, this might not be that job. We either find enough other qualities and fulfillments of the job to offset this or we seek a career that does provide continual respect and appreciation. (Good luck with that.)
When I stop for gas on the way home, I’ll run into the convenience store for a soda. Working as a convenience store clerk is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but would I want to do that for a living? Not particularly.
I’ll stop for groceries and I already know first-hand what it’s like to be a cashier or a bagger. I also know what it’s like to go outside on a cold and rainy day to retrieve shopping carts. My worst day as an SID (outside of a genuine tragedy) will always be better than my best day as a grocery store cashier and bagger.
And if I still want to complain about being disrespected and unappreciated, I’ll stop at a restaurant and cry a river to my server, who gets yelled at by a customer if the cook overcooks or undercooks their food, or if he/she has so many tables gets yelled at because the customer had to wait almost two minutes for ranch, or who makes a living on the premise that every customer comprehends the concept of tipping.
2) Pick Your Battles!
I can’t stress this enough. PICK. YOUR. BATTLES. There are at least a million things we need to be able to do our jobs effectively, varying from staffing to equipment to cooperation from coaches and administrators. Of that million, there are at least 999,990 scenarios that will NEVER happen. So much stress comes from battles will never win. We can alleviate much of that stress by focusing on the one or two battles that we have a shot at winning.
And when we present our case to administrators or coaches, always frame it in terms of how it benefits the athletics department, the school, a team, whatever.
News Flash: nobody cares how it benefits us. We’re always presenting our case to a “What’s in it for me?” jury. Emphasize how it benefits them.
And it’s okay to swallow some pride. If getting what we want means having a coach or administrator think it was his/her idea, fine!
I always try to point out to coaches that when they ask for something of me, it’s to benefit their program. And when I ask something of them, it’s to benefit THEIR program. (In all honesty, I’m usually preaching to the choir. The coaches who actually listen are the ones who already recognize that. The ones who don’t already recognize that likely never will and will never care. But never say never.)
3) Obligation Versus Opportunity
I have discovered an amazing young lady named Victoria Garrick, a recently graduated Southern Cal volleyball alum who finished her career ranked fifth in school history in career digs. Originally a walk-on, she was a four-year starting libero I won’t recite her full story, but few people knew that during her collegiate career, she was suffering from severe depression and eating disorders. Victoria is now a motivational speaker and writer, gearing her talks mostly towards female student-athletes, but her words can resonate with anyone.
She’s written a piece about “Obligation vs. Opportunity”. She said she used to dread volleyball practice because she looked at it as an obligation that took her away from activities she would rather be doing. Practice was just doing the same things every day and she hated it.
Yet during her recovery, she changed the word “obligation” to “opportunity.” She started viewing practice as an opportunity to improve, to learn and to grow. It was an opportunity to spend time with the people she was closest to and to play the sport she loves.
In my career, I have frequently – sometimes even regularly during the month of February – been guilty of viewing home contests as “obligations.” I need to be updating the website or formatting photos or editing video, but instead, I have to cover a game today. Two games. Three games.
As I said, it was a love of sports that got me into this profession. When did that turn into a love of being at my desk in front of my computer?
I’ve learned to once again view covering home (and away) contests as opportunities: an opportunity to watch sports, an opportunity to see the finished product of the work the kids and coaches have put in, and yes, an opportunity to get out of the office!
I’ve also tried to frame SID requests as opportunities for coaches to get their teams promoted. Again, there’s probably going to be some more “preaching to the choir,” but it’s worth a shot.
This summer, I read a post from an SID complaining about having to interrupt fall sports preparation to write a news release on his/her student-athletes winning scholar-athlete awards from a coaches association. Really?! THAT’S an obligation? That’s an opportunity to promote our student-athletes’ academic achievements. That it comes from a coaches association is irrelevant.
4) What Seems Like a Crisis At the Moment Is Usually Just An INCONVENIENCE
I once had an assistant whose favorite phrase seemed to be (in a panicked tone) “We’ve got a problem.” His panic became my panic. But then we would resolve the crisis and discover the panic and stress were in vain.
Whatever our professions, everyone has many stressful occurrences on the job and in life. On the job, it’s usually technology failing moments before game time. Relax and work through it. If the result is along the lines of no streaming or live stats available for that game, ignore the coaches and parents who will tell us that it’s an end of the world crisis. They’ll get over it.
(“And if they don’t, who cares! We’re going to see Burt Reynolds!” That was for all of us Golden Girls fans.)
5) Take Breaks From Athletics
Sit with non-athletics people during lunch once in a while. If schedules permit, attend non-athletics activities on campus or participate in non-athletics organizations on campus. Do volunteer work off campus. (I’m hoping to volunteer at a local animal shelter that brought dogs on campus a couple weeks ago. Greatest day ever!) If religion is a part of your life, get involved with your place of worship. The synagogue that I’ve joined has been one of the best parts of my new life.
6) Two-Sentence Definition Of Our Job
It’s a coach’s job to tell his/her student-athletes everything they’re doing wrong. It’s our job to tell our student-athletes everything they’re doing right.
(My volleyball team recently lost a match 25-8, 25-22, 25-10. My game story focused on the second set and one might get the impression we were playing in the national championship. When my team’s struggling through a winless season, I’ll take the opportunity to find things they can feel good about.)
7) Make It Fun
I once made my women’s basketball coach “mad” because during a home game for which I was doing public address (and stats), I got the crowd clapping along while I lip-synched Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World.” We were trailing at the time and the coach told me later she wasn’t able to yell at her kids because she saw me lip-synching and couldn’t stop laughing. We won by 20, so she got over it.
Take selfies with the kids. Photobomb their pics. Dance around the office and sing “Sheldon and his brain, yeah!” every time you fix something without having to call tech support. Play the songs “Don’t Fight It” or “Roll With It” or “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” if you need a stress break. If it’s a nice day out, go out and watch a practice. We’re in a profession that we can sit out in the sun and relax and we’re still doing our job.
8) Let It Go
This is one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” suggestions. “Let it go” just isn’t in my DNA. Even though I have a new job and a new life for which I’m grateful, I still have terrible ruminations about the circumstances surrounding my separation from my previous job. I don’t wish ill will against the school or any individuals, but I do wish for an acknowledgement from someone at the school that I was wronged. And I know it will never happen. And I know it doesn’t do me any good dwelling on it, but I still do. But not as frequently and not as intensely, so I’m improving.
During Kol Nidre services, my rabbi must have been speaking directly to me because his message was about letting it go. He related occurrences in his life from 30 and 40 years ago that he hasn’t been able to let go.
Anyone who saw my Facebook post about the Tennessee Titans FINALLY being called for an illegal forward pass against the Buffalo Bills can tell that when it comes to the infamous Music City
Miracle Illegal Forward Pass, I still haven’t been able to let it go even 20 years later.
Heck, until the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, I was still sticking pins in my Larry Barnett voodoo doll for not calling interference against Ed Armbrister, forcing Carlton Fisk into a throwing error which led to the winning run in game three of the 1975 World Series in which the Cincinnati Reds beat the Red Sox in seven games. It took 29 years for me to let it go.
It’s easy to hang onto bitterness and difficult to let it go. But holding onto anger and bitterness only makes ourselves more miserable. Whatever it is, let it go. And feel free to send me a text or e-mail reminding me to let it go.
9) Take Mental Health Seriously
I always preach that asking for help is an act of COURAGE and STRENGTH, not an act of weakness. If you’re struggling because of the job, don’t hesitate to reach out for help: from a friend, from a health professional, from a fellow SID.
One of the many things that makes sports information such a great profession is the people who are in it. In my experience, SID’s will drop everything to assist a fellow SID, even someone they don’t know. When I was tasked with establishing an athletics hall of fame at my school, I did a web search and reached out to an SID I had never met because I liked the way his school set up their hall of fame. He didn’t hesitate to assist me. Nothing in it for him, but helping each other is much of what this profession is about.
If you’re struggling with the job, reach out to someone who’s been in the business for a couple decades and why they keep coming back for more! Reach out to someone who has been at the same school for an extended length of time and ask what’s his/her secret.
And if you suspect someone you know (or perhaps don’t even know) is struggling, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d rather upset someone for prying into their business than to have tragedy occur when I might have been able to prevent it.
Epilogue
In every job, we all on occasion want to channel our inner Johnny Paycheck and exclaim “Take this job and shove it!” Unless we have this week’s winning Powerball or Mega Millions numbers, don’t. Just don’t.
We’re fortunate and blessed to be in this profession. Some days it takes a lot to remind us how fortunate we are. A lot. A LOT. But I speak from experiencing various jobs that I don’t want to do to realize how much I want to be in this profession. Again, my worst day as an SID is far better than my best day as a middle-aged grocery bagger.
Sincerely,
David Shulimson, Sports Information Director
Salem University (W.Va.)