College Sports Information Directors of America

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• Past CoSIDA 25-Year Award Recipients

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Steve Conn – Yale University, Sr. Assistant Athletics Communications Director
2019 CoSIDA 25-Year Award recipient

by Dan Fleschner, NBC Sports Group Sr. Director, Content & Programming – NBC Olympics

In the spring of 1995, I was a 15-year-old sophomore at Amity High School in Woodbridge, Connecticut, just outside of New Haven. It was my first year at the school, and I had started to find my place there by writing about sports for The Trident, the school newspaper.
 
One day, Mrs. Bonomi, the newspaper adviser and my English teacher, handed me a form letter the school had recently received. Someone named Steve Conn, the director of sports publicity at nearby Yale University, had sent this note to local high schools, asking if any students would be interested in applying for a summer internship in his office. She said I should look into it.
 
I didn’t know who Steve Conn was, I didn’t know what a sports publicity office was, and I didn’t know much about Yale’s sports teams. But with almost 25 years of hindsight, I do know this: with that letter, Steve Conn, a CoSIDA 25-Year Award recipient this June, changed the course of my life.
 
Shortly thereafter, my mother drove me to downtown New Haven for an interview. It must have gone well, because Steve hired me for that summer. As soon as the internship began, the work was as hands-on as an eager teenager could dream. Steve threw me right into it: he had me write and edit media guide copy, gave me game program feature story assignments and sent me into the archives to research Yale history and statistics. When the fall season rolled around, he recommended that I operate newly-introduced stat programs for football and basketball games, and encouraged me to start public address announcing for various Yale teams.
 
 
Not every person in Steve’s position would trust a 16-year-old to do the things he encouraged me to do, but his confidence in me gave me confidence in myself. He guided me when I needed direction, built me up me when I doubted myself, and most of all empowered me to feel like I belonged. When it was time for me to go to college, I was fortunate to continue my education with Steve when I enrolled as a freshman at Yale.
 
Steve was my most important professor, and his classrooms ranged from an office in New Haven to press boxes and broadcast booths all over the Ivy League, ECAC and beyond. His encouragement said to me, “You are good at this. Keep doing it.” The validation of an adult is often necessary for a kid to believe that they can accomplish something. That was certainly the case for me.
 
As an undergrad, my transition to writing for the Yale Daily News and broadcasting on WYBC radio was very smooth, thanks to the preparation Steve gave me when I was in high school. In college, Steve continued to train me and showed me that I could be successful in sports media in the “adult world” when he pushed me to pursue a coveted summer internship at ESPN. And in the spring of my senior year, he sent me out of the nest, connecting me with Yale graduate Peter Diamond of NBC Sports to work on the network’s Olympics coverage.
 
Almost 20 years later, I am still working with and learning from Peter, thanks to Steve Conn.
 
My relationship with Steve is meaningful and special in its own ways, but the story of him guiding and encouraging young people toward careers in sports is not unique. He loves working with kids, and he has advised countless students. The most famous example is Theo Epstein, the baseball executive who amazingly assembled and delivered World Series-winning teams to the championship-starved fans of both the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs. He benefitted from Steve’s wisdom and guidance as an undergrad at Yale, and Steve helped launch Theo’s career in baseball in the mid-1990s.
 
Steve’s connection with Yale sports goes back to when he was a precocious 14-year-old, roaming the historic turf of the Yale Bowl with his camera, shooting photos of the Eli football team led by legendary head coach Carm Cozza (who would later become Steve’s close colleague and friend).
 
About a decade later, Steve experienced a homecoming when he was hired as the assistant sports publicity director at Yale. He was promoted to run the office six years later, and in his more than 30 professional years in the Elm City, he has become a fixture at the university, in the New Haven community and across the NCAA sports map.
 
Whether you’re a rookie college reporter, a New York Times columnist, a first-time student broadcaster or a network TV star, Steve treats everyone with the same respect. He also engenders remarkable loyalty among his friends and associates in the business. This has led to incredible stability and consistency in his office, as his two trusted lieutenants – Tim Bennett and Sam Rubin – have each worked at Steve’s side for more than two decades.
 
During the overlap of seasons from fall to winter and winter to spring, nobody puts in more hours than Steve, working the rare trio of football, men’s ice hockey and men’s lacrosse. (Fun fact: in the case of men’s ice hockey and lacrosse, Steve is believed to be the only SID to work with NCAA champions in both sports.)
 
Steve is a true gentleman. He is a man of quiet grace, dignity and modesty. He is universally liked, unendingly patient, and quite possibly the nicest person I have ever met. He and his wife Emily have raised a great family, and it’s no surprise that their sons Jeremy and Jordan have become college athletes with potential careers in sports ahead.
 
One last anecdote. In April 2013, Yale played in the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, and I drove out from New York City for the games. Steve was handling all of the Yale media needs himself, so I volunteered to help him where I could. Moments after the Bulldogs beat Quinnipiac to claim an improbable NCAA title, Steve pulled me aside. He told me that he had put together some initial thoughts for the game release, but he wanted me to write it. It was one of the biggest stories of his career, and he wanted to share the byline. That’s Steve.
 
Steve Conn has spent a lifetime lifting up the people around him, myself very much included. The CoSIDA 25-Year Award is certainly a fitting and well-deserved honor for his many years of service to Yale and college sports.
 
I just hope I can someday repay him for sending the letter that changed my life.