College Sports Information Directors of America

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Dan McDonnell – University of Southern Indiana, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications

CoSIDA Achievement Award (College Division)

by John Kean – Missouri S&T, Sports Information Director/CoSIDA Board member

Dan McDonnell, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications at Southern Indiana, had been around sports as a player for much of his life, playing three sports while in high school and continuing his career for three seasons on the football team at Mesa State College – now known as Colorado Mesa University.

He also had eyes on going into coaching after completing his college career – but a coaching change and having his best friend already working within the sports information office at the school saw McDonnell change directions with his career plans, leading into a career that has now lasted two decades at the University of Southern Indiana.

In recognition of his achievements and commitment to athletic communications, McDonnell is the 2020 recipient of the CoSIDA Achievement Award for the college division. The honor, given annually to one university (Division I) and one college division member with 10-plus years of service, recognizes an associate or assistant media relations director who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college sports information and provides exceptional service to their institution or conference office.

“It’s an honor. Obviously, we don’t get in this profession for personal awards, but it is really nice to be recognized and it is something that CoSIDA continues to do so well (recognizing members),” noted McDonnell. “To be on a list with SIDs like Chris Masters, Shane Hermann and Tom Nelson is humbling and flattering to know that there are so many deserving SIDs that have been under consideration. I’ve been blessed to work for a great boss in Ray Simmons and have had great SIDs like Roy Pickerill, John Kean, Eric Hess and Don Owen in the GLVC that have been mentors throughout the years!”
 
McDonnell has served at USI since 2002 after spending two years as an assistant in the university’s sports information office. This all became possible when a change in Colorado Mesa’s football staff led to an alteration of his career aspirations.
 

“I originally had aspirations of coaching and had discussed the possibility with our coach at the time to get involved with coaching when I was done playing,” McDonnell said. “I was a scout team guy that gave a lot of effort and my coach appreciated that. He told me when I decided to stop playing, he’d get me in to start helping with filming and that sort of thing.

“However, we had a coaching change and the new coach that came in thought it would be best if I started out at the high school level, which is something at the time I just wasn’t interested in,” McDonnell added. “So I turned to the sports information route, first as a practicum worker and then as a student assistant. My best friend in college (Chris Day) had been working in the sports information office since he was a freshman and through him, I got involved as a practicum worker.”

McDonnell’s route to Evansville, Ind., began in his home state. He spent the summer of 1999 as an intern for the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. He completed his bachelor’s degree in mass communications at Colorado Mesa the following spring and had stayed in touch with Chris Cole, who was running the communications operations for the RMAC during that year. It was Cole, who had just graduated from Northern Kentucky University – a rival of USI’s in the Great Lakes Valley Conference – that passed the word down to McDonnell about the opportunity at USI.

Initially, McDonnell had wanted to go to a school with football (Southern Indiana does not sponsor a football program) and had a chance to take the top position at Northern State University in South Dakota in 2002.  At the same time, USI approved a full-time assistant’s position and McDonnell decided to stay in Evansville.

“I just didn’t think I was ready to be the head SID yet and I really felt like USI had a lot to offer in terms of developing my skills,” said McDonnell on why he elected to remain at the university. “Throughout the years, I’ve been blessed to work for an outstanding boss in Ray Simmons and an outstanding athletic director in Jon Mark Hall. USI has had great coaches to work with and I just couldn’t see myself anywhere else.

“My wife (Marissa), who I met in 2011, is an Evansville native, so now I’m a USI-lifer, at least as long as they’ll have me,” McDonnell, a father of sons Brayden and Grayson, added.

Besides his work at USI, McDonnell also served as the GLVC’s sports information director for softball for four years and continued to assist the conference office at the league’s championship events beyond that time. It was softball that provided him one of his most memorable events in the spring of 2018 when the Screaming Eagles made a stunning late-season run that culminated in a national championship.

“In 2017, our softball team was dominating behind a freshman pitcher (Jennifer Leonhardt),” McDonnell said. “They absolutely dominated the region and outside of a hiccup at the GLVC Tournament, cruised through the post-season to a regional title and a berth in the NCAA Division II Softball Championships for the first time in program history. They went 0-2.

“The following year was rough; they were 27-22 at the end of the regular season and were flirting with maybe not even making it to the GLVC Tournament. Those girls flipped a switch in the post-season! Won the GLVC Tournament, upset Grand Valley State in the regional and swept Illinois Springfield in the Super Regional.”

That was just the beginning, as USI carried that momentum into the NCAA Division II Championships and despite being seeded eighth, went 5-0 at the event to take away the hardware.

“They were the eighth seed facing a No. 1-ranked North Georgia team that was 61-2 in the first round of the NCAA-II Softball Championship,” McDonnell recalled. “Leonhardt held them to one hit in a 1-0 win. She followed that with USI’s first-ever post-season no-hitter as they blanked Angelo State in the second round. They rallied for an eight-inning win over St. Leo and swept St. Anselm in the best-of-three championship to conclude the post-season with a 14-1 record.”

The other moment of note came when McDonnell was accompanying USI’s baseball team at the 2010 NCAA Division II Championships in Cary, N.C., where the Screaming Eagles captured their first national title in that sport.

Times have certainly changed in the athletic communications field over the years and technology has been a big reason for that. Even the way information is disseminated today and what is being produced by a communications office is far different in 2020 than it was in 1999 or 2002.

“I think technology has been the key force of change in our industry,” he said. “Technology has driven immediacy and the social media and has personally brought me back to the third part of my major in college, which was broadcast journalism.

“When I got to USI, I was using two aspects of my major (news and editorial and public relations). Now, I’m using the broadcast side of my major more than ever,” McDonnell said. “When I was in college, we were cutting video on a pair of VHS tapes; now I’m cutting video on my phone and pumping the finished product out during a media timeout or in between innings.”

Meanwhile, other areas that were considered traditional areas of the athletic communications field tend to be funneled off to other personnel within the office in order to help meet the current demands of the job.

“I miss the days of simplicity, when it was doing stats, making sure players and coaches got to interviews and writing up a short recap to fax out,” McDonnell said. “Now, I’m hardly involved in the statistical aspect and am recording postgame interviews to put up in our game stories. The media really doesn’t get our stories via email -- they get them through Twitter.”

Looking back -- even as he had considered coaching as a career route, it was something that McDonnell once heard from his high school athletic director that seemingly stuck with him years later.

“The funny thing is, my high school athletic director said something to me, I think when I was a junior or senior, that I should go into sports information,” he said. “I brushed it off at the time, but looking back at it, it was one of the most spot-on things anyone ever said to me growing up.”