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CoSIDA.com/CoSIDA360 Magazine Archive
Note: This story appeared in the Spring 2020 May edition of CoSIDA 360 Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
Cover Story
Working From Home
How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you.
by Beau White – CoSIDA Director of Creative Services
Chances are you remember right where you were on March 11 when you heard the NBA pulled the players off the floor after a Utah Jazz player had tested positive for COVID-19.
For me, I had just returned from Salt Lake City, of all places, where I was representing CoSIDA at the ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) Great Ideas Conference, a conference for those who work in association management, to learn how to better serve our members.
While in Utah, few in attendance knew what we were in for, although last minute sessions were formed as ASAE tried to give us guidance based on what we knew then, which wasn’t much. People would ask “what have you heard about this coronavirus thing?” and starting to wonder if and how the convention season might be impacted.
The NBA’s decision set off an avalanche of follow-up decisions and announcements from all levels of government and sports leagues that has likely impacted our lives for many years to come.
Since then we’ve all gone through a range of emotions. Shock, disappointment, uncertainty for sure. Some days are better than others.
There’s no one-size-fits-all summary of what everyone is going through or how we as individuals are coping.
Many parents are being forced to manage online learning for their children. Those who live alone may be feeling isolated. Some SIDs are receiving great support from supervisors and some are dealing with unnecessary demands and stress. People have been furloughed, laid off or had their job eliminated. Some institutions closed permanently.
As an organization, we’ve dedicated our efforts toward community, support and education through our CoSIDA Coffee Shop, our Listening & Leading Webinar series and our strategic rollout of the 2020 Compensation and Career Satisfaction Survey results.
We’re seeing more engagement than ever, showing that CoSIDA membership is important to you and we’re thankful for that.
Shortly after the shutdown we sent out a link asking the membership to “Tell us the story of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted you on a professional level.”
Following are stories submitted by CoSIDA members. Most of these accounts were shared within a month after the shutdown happened. As fast as things change, these stories may look different if we asked today.
Thank you to those who responded and to all who continue to support our family in athletics communications. All who responded are included below.
Gallery: (5-20-2020) CoSIDA Members Working From Home
Fran Elia – SUNY Cortland, Sports Information Director
It started by having my trip to Florida to cover Cortland’s softball team canceled just moments after my wife and I had checked in our bags at the airport (we were traveling a day ahead of the team). We quickly turned around, canceled our flights and asked for our bags back! Of course the bigger impact has been the same that everyone in the profession is facing — no events to cover, working from home, trying to find stories to tell, and to continue with “office work” while the uncertainty of the situation continues.
Kent Brown – Illinois, Associate AD/Media Relations
The lack of face time with colleagues is wearing on us all. We certainly have more access with our coaches and athletes than just about any other time, so we’ve really tried to have regular media teleconferences to help our media get fresh content. I’m even starting to miss personal interaction with our media.
Allison Hogue – WBCA, Communications & Marketing Intern
It has created a strange environment for me. Before the pandemic, we were in the process of preparing for our WBCA Convention in New Orleans. I was looking forward to this event for months. Then the convention got canceled and we started working from home a week later. This is my first year in the working world and I never thought I would experience working from home. But I am learning how to make the most of it while gaining new skills.
Blake Timm – Great Northwest Athletic Conference, Assistant Commissioner for Communications
CoSIDA Hall of Fame Class of 2020
My work from home started on the day sports ground to a halt: March 14. I was already home preparing to do public address for one of Oregon’s high school state basketball tournaments (which was subsequently canceled). The first week was as frantic as being in the office. Information on what would happen with the season was changing, literally, by the minute. As our conference athletic directors were discussing what to do with the GNAC’s spring seasons, I was texting our commissioner seemingly every two minutes with another update from other conferences. Since then things have slowed down. I am seemingly in summer work mode outside of the remaining all-academic teams and awards left to announce
For the first two weeks, the rest of my family was essentially on extended spring break. But now my wife, who is an elementary school teacher, is back at work while my kids have started into the world of distance learning. So now the challenge is balancing my work and Melissa’s work responsibilities with making sure we can guide the kids in their abbreviated school days.
If there has been any silver lining to this crisis, it has been that I have spent more time with my family doing things together than we have since both of our girls were toddlers. We have played games, watched many movies, even all worked together on learning to play the guitar. With the clock ticking on how long both of our girls will be living with us at home, that time is a blessing.
I’ve been trying to live my own advice of slowing down, taking the extra time to be with family. Our social media accounts have slowed considerably and that is okay. The computer shuts down at 5 p.m. on Friday and does not fire up again for work until Monday. Again, this time is a blessing. I have to take advantage.
Donnie Smith – Southeastern, Director of Athletic Communications
It’s provided an interesting perspective. Crossover season was not kind to us with hosting basketball tournaments on campus, our most successful wrestling team in school history, and a spring training game against the Detroit Tigers all happening together. So, we went from being spread extremely thin and tired, to not having any games to cover and having no interactions with our athletes. It’s been a reminder of what a privilege it is to work in sports and a reflection on what is actually important.
Alisha Alexander – Lewis-Clark State, Sports Information Director
It’s a really strange feeling going from being busy out of my mind and preparing for national tournaments, to being at home prepping things for next year and finding ways to keep current content online. Working from home isn’t so bad, but I miss my coworkers and our student-athletes. It is nice (I use the term loosely) being able to work on projects that I haven’t had time for, even in the summer, but I would easily give that up to be busy out of my mind again.
Katie Green – NAIA, Manager of Athletic Communications
The biggest impact would be taking away some of what I consider the more fun parts of my job — the events. I never wanted to be confined to a desk for my whole career and our championship events get me out from behind my desk in different locations, working face-to-face with the people that I’m emailing back and forth about those events.
Many of the coaches and SIDs that I see at events I only get to see once a year at certain championships and I miss that dynamic.
David Alexander – College of Saint Rose, Assistant AD for Communications
It has forced us to reimagine our roles. We have focused on our student-athletes, perhaps with a greater emphasis on those who had their seasons canceled, and our alumni. We have used the opportunity to reinforce that their overall well-being is still very much in the forefront of our minds. We have completed projects that we normally wouldn’t have had the time for. We have developed feature stories for our website, while emphasizing our social media channels to remain connected to them through various videos, while offering resources for remote classroom work and remaining focused.
Mathieu Tanguay – Université Laval, Sports Information Officer
For me, it started as I was about to go the airport on March 12 to fly to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to cover the Laval Rouge et Or men’s volleyball team at the U SPORTS national championship. Three hours before leaving, my bosses decided that it was safer for me to stay in Quebec City and follow everything from home. At first, I was bummed about this, but as everyone knows, things soon became a bit more complicated.
The tournament was completely canceled. From that point on, I started working from home like all my colleagues. My girlfriend also is able to work at home, so we’re trying to make the best of this situation with our two daughters (7 and 9 years old) around. It’s not always easy to make them do some school work as we are trying to go through our usual work routine, but we consider ourselves privileged to be able to continue working, as many people around us have lost their job. You have to be more creative than ever to keep things interesting and sharing thoughts and ideas with other colleagues around Canada and also in the US has been really helpful.
Cindy Potter – Columbia College (Mo.), Associate AD – Director of Media Relations & Compliance
CoSIDA 2nd Vice President
2020 Warren Berg Award recipient
The biggest thing that has changed for me during this time is that I’m not afraid to tell my coaches and co-workers that I need help or more time to do things. It’s changed my productivity level immensely, having two young kids at home means I cannot dedicate every waking minute to my work like I had in the past since I have to make sure the kids have what they need first before taking care of work.
Dave Albrecht – Lynn, Assistant AD for Communications & Digital Strategy
I started my new job at Lynn University on February 28, 2020. During my 1,634-mile trip, I was filled with excitement for my new opportunity and change of climate from Minnesota to South Florida. Two weeks later, everything at our institution, and conference — along with others across the country — came to an abrupt halt. After a month of working from home, I was furloughed (50% hours & pay) until the end of June. While I was rocked by the first development, I can safely say, this news shook me even more. I know I’m not alone as many across the country will unfortunately experience similar cutbacks at their institutions. I continue to rely on family, friends and colleagues in the industry, through texts, calls and Zoom hangouts, to get through this difficult time. Moving across the country, alone, always has its challenges, but this is the toughest transition I’ve faced yet. Every day I attempt to stay connected, active, healthy and positive. That’s all any of us can do right now!
Eric Rhew – UNCW, Assistant Athletic Communications Director
From a professional standpoint, I’ve been working from home since March 23, but have continued to put in work on a daily basis. However, with the cancelation of the NCAA Championships, my opportunity to volunteer at the NCAA Men’s Final Four and work at the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship was eliminated. It’s tough to miss those opportunities, but compared to what other people are going through, it’s very minimal in terms of the impact to my life.
Mark Albanese – Pacific Lutheran, Director of Sports Communication
It has shifted our focus away from covering student-athletes on the field to honoring our seniors and what the future holds for them along with stories on alumni making an impact in our community in a time of crisis.
Joe Danahey – Humboldt State, Assistant AD for Media Relations
It totally has changed how we’re doing our job. It’s all on the computer and social media. I really miss the interaction with the coaches, staff and more importantly the student-athletes, especially as the SAAC advisor.
Rob Carolla – CoSIDA Past President
The pandemic ended our 2020 season completely, five games short of completion. It has also fundamentally changed the way we work, with all staff working from their homes.
Brian Morales – CoSIDA Mentorship Committee Chair
Like many of us, the transition to the “new norm” of working from home has been the hardest. When this all started, I was already into our 2020 baseball season while wrapping up the 2019-20 women’s basketball slate (the widely recognized #crossoverseason). At the forefront, the most impacted part, for me on a professional level, is not being able to cover our spring sports and seeing the true completion of the 2019-20 season. It’s a feeling of unfinished business and a state of uncertainty for the foreseeable future.
Judy Willson – LSU, Associate Communications Director
CoSIDA Past President
The first three years of my full-time career I worked out of my apartment in Kansas City for the MIAA, just two full-time employees working two hours apart from 1991-94. I knew I never wanted to be that isolated for work ever again. Now, here we are back in that mode.
Kevin Lanke – Rose-Hulman, Assistant AD for Communications
In addition to the obvious working from home and not working on current games, we also lose the interaction with our student workers and the student groups we work directly with throughout the college. The toughest day for me was watching the students’ mass exodus from campus as state and local governments were beginning to issue Stay At Home Orders. Some were seniors that we may not see again; others are underclassmen we will not see for five months. That entire scene was difficult to take.
John Kean – Missouri S&T, Sports Information Director
Like nearly everyone, this has forced us into a different working situation than we’re used to. It has forced us to interact in different ways, like using videoconferencing more often for meetings and has also forced into finding new and creative ways to create the content necessary to keep our audience engaged.
Theresa Kurtz – Mountain West Conference, Associate Director, Strategic Communications
The craziest part was watching everything unfold after the Mountain West Basketball Championships had concluded. We had a unique year with our tournament starting a week earlier, so I had wrapped everything and was waiting for Selection Sunday. While many were in the midst of basketball tournaments, I was watching the dominoes fall and glad that we had gotten our tournament in. It has definitely been interesting to go from the busiest time of year (crossover season) to no sports. It gives you a lot of perspective. I went from I don’t have enough time for basketball, softball and track & field to not having any of it. It’s required an insane amount of flexibility to completely pivot from what we were doing to what we are doing now.
Nick Guerriero – CoSIDA Continuing Education Committee Chair
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted me in multiple ways. As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, being cooped up at home only triggers my anxiety by looking at the same four walls every day. From a professional level, I am hurt and saddened that our student-athletes won’t have the opportunity to celebrate senior days and walk at commencement.
Justin LaFleur – Lehigh, Senior Assistant Director, Sports Communications
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted me professionally, much like it has the entire communications field. Besides the obvious ways, it has also given me an even stronger appreciation of why we do what we do. It has truly reinforced what I already thought, that working with student-athletes is extremely rewarding. I was very impacted by being around our women’s lacrosse team the day they found out their season was canceled. Everything I saw was so genuine and real. People were being vulnerable with each other, and they were showing such genuine gratitude for one another. In such a tough time for all, I saw what college athletics is all about, right in front of my eyes, and I feel blessed and thankful they allowed me to be there during such emotional times. I was so inspired by what I saw that I wrote about it. It helped me put all my thoughts into words, and most importantly, served as a tribute for not only the Lehigh women’s lacrosse team, but also all of college athletics.
Danny Barnts – Point Loma Nazarene, Assistant AD for Communications
This job is tough as a young professional to find a balance of time for yourself and overworking. This situation and the necessity to work at home has made it difficult to achieve the balance I once did by leaving work at work.
Chad Waller – UMKC, Director of Athletic Communications
I have learned to be very specific on my daily goals on work-specific projects. My wife and I are also home with two kids under the age of 7, so we need to be very organized on our work and family schedules.
Roy Allen – Florida SouthWestern State, Sports Information Director
It has certainly made me appreciate being busy. With us all being in the heat of crossover season when everything happened (cancelations), I think we all get to the brink of that burned out phase, but I can honestly say that I was more burned out of having no games and nothing to do after about three days of our ‘new normal’.
Danielle Percival – Piedmont, Assistant AD of Communications
CoSIDA Board of Directors
2020 Rising Star - College Division
I think the biggest impact for me is testing my creativity. We often get so caught up in the moment of events and projects that have serious deadlines, that our creativity can take a backseat. Now, the challenge is being creative in the content we’re putting out so it’s not “forced” content. Not just content for content’s sake. Truly quality over quantity.
Joe DiBari – Fordham, Sports Information Director
It’s helped me realize that there’s a lot more to this job than just game coverage. My staff has been able to brainstorm and come up with some interesting ideas to keep thing dynamic on the website and social media. That said, I do miss the contests. However, the positive is I now have an office with a window.
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