College Sports Information Directors of America

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Chas Dorman – Princeton University, Assistant Director of Athletics/Communications

Rising Star Award - University Division
 

by Mike Mahoney – University of Pennsylvania, Director of Athletic Communications

Passion.
 
When you talk to people about Chas Dorman — coaches, athletes, co-workers, colleagues —that word keeps coming up.
 
Passion.
 
It is passion that made Chas, who had never seen a wrestling match before he took over as wrestling contact at the University of Pennsylvania, quickly become one of the most highly regarded wrestling SIDs in the country.
 
It is passion that has made Chas a go-to person for social media advice among his peers.
 
It is passion that keeps Chas playing in any number of men’s hockey leagues throughout the year near Plymouth Meeting, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Emily, and their young twins William and Charlotte.
 
Passion is one trait which has driven him from his humble beginnings as a Georgetown University student worker, to Curry College, to two stints at Penn—broken up by a cup of coffee at Lebanon Valley College—to his current position as Assistant Director of Athletics overseeing Athletic Communications at Princeton University.
 
It is also that passion that makes him a no-brainer for the organization’s Rising Star Award (University Division) for 2020—an honor he receives just under the gun of serving 10 years, as he willingly admits.
 
“I might be the oldest Rising Star in the history of the award,” he joked recently.
 
Born and bred just outside Boston (in Weymouth), Chas attended BC High, one of the flagship athletic schools in the city. Which was humorous, because he hated Boston College. A member of a hockey family, Chas was raised on Boston University—his family had season tickets as long as he can remember—and the Bruins.
 
 
Going to those games, Chas’ awareness wasn’t limited to the action on the ice.
 
“I knew that public relations was something people did,” he said recently. “Going to Bruins games and BU games, I would thumb through the game program and see what people’s job were. Ed Carpenter seemed to have a pretty cool job at BU, putting the program together. As a teenager, I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but I was certainly aware of it.”
 
That awareness paid off when Chas arrived at Georgetown.
 
“I needed a work-study job, and sports info popped up as an option,” he said. “Mike Tuberosa (who, coincidentally, is receiving his CoSIDA 25-Year Award this year) was the guy in charge. The more I got involved in it, the more it piqued my interest.
 
“As big as basketball was at Georgetown, it was really working with the other sports where I fell in love with the job,” he continued. “It’d be Tubes or Aimee Cicero and a few of us students running everything. You’re watching the games, doing the stats, and sharing in the successes and failures together. My sophomore year, we needed a public-address announcer at football and so I took it over - a sophomore doing PA at an FCS football game! Then you’d go to basketball and it’s at the MCI Center and the Big East and it’s a big deal. It was cool to see both sides of the job from that perspective.”
 
Chas’ schooling ended closer to home (at Curry College), but his sports information work continued there under the Colonels’ SID Ken Golner. Following his graduation, Chas looked at internships. Golner—who had himself served an internship at Penn—made a call to Philadelphia on Chas’ behalf.
 
Suffice it to say it worked out well for all involved parties.
 
Chas spent two years as an intern. As testament to his work, he was recruited to Lebanon Valley by Tim Flynn when his internship ended (Flynn had been one of his original supervisors at Penn). Just five months later, a full-time position opened up back in University City and Chas was courted for a return to the friendly familiar faces in Weightman Hall.
 
Thus began a tenure that saw him, among other things, named Division I SID of the Year by the National Wrestling Media Association.
 
In the process, he made himself an indispensable part of Penn Athletics.
 
“Sharing office space with Chas was an absolute highlight of my time as a SID,” said Krissy Woods, who now works at Villanova University. “I was always and continually impressed with his work ethic; he was always going the extra mile for his teams, coaches and athletes. His ability to command attention when he communicated with others impacted me. When Chas had something to say, people listened. They listened because he proved himself day after day. I respect Chas’ ability to find humor and lightheartedness in times of stress. If you can’t laugh at yourself, who or what can you laugh at?”
 
“Chas made me better as an SID,” said Eric Dolan, currently a Director of Communications with Vanderbilt University Athletics. “He innately challenges everyone around him to be better. His constant creativity, critical thought and strong work ethic pushed me to keep up with that standard each day. I’m really thankful for that.”
 
“I learned a lot from Chas,” said Wilder Treadway, currently an Assistant Director of Communications with Stanford University Athletics. “He was someone who had the exact same position as me when I started at Penn, so I saw where I wanted to rise to and the commitment it takes to get there. It's long hours, I saw the vested level of interest Chas has with his teams. For him, it's not just a job, it's a passion.” (That word!)
 
Chas has kept a positive attitude and never got stale in his work. That paid off when he became Penn’s first Director of Social Media.
 
“I found social media broke down barriers for athletes and teams with their fans and fan bases,” he said. “I thought it was neat as a fan, that feeling that you were getting direct access to an athlete or a team. So it was fun trying to figure out how we could do that at Penn. That helped me find my place in the office; it allowed me to carve out my own niche.
 
“I was always empowered to try things, and the most fun I had was putting stuff on the whiteboard and seeing whether or not they would work. One of my favorite things about the places I’ve worked is that we have kind of a unique opportunity to do whatever we want. We can try something, and if it doesn’t immediately work we can adjust without too much fallout.”
 
“I was able to observe Chas as he took on the roles and responsibilities of social media director,” said Woods. “He just started doing the work and educating himself. He did what it took to learn and find new ways of growing in his career.”
 
Woods was so impressed that, when she left Penn to take a job with the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association, she hatched a plan.
 
“I wanted to bring someone in who could speak to best practices of social media for the youth sport audience, and Chas was my first and only choice,” she recalled. “He is a rare balance of someone incredibly down to earth, extremely professional and passionate. (There it is again!) He spoke to a group ranging from small-community soccer coaches to USSoccer senior officials, Philadelphia Sport and Tourism professionals, and high-level front office administrators. The feedback we received was fantastic, to the point that they wanted us to put on an all-day workshop that featured only Chas speaking about various social media practices. It led us to make Chas essentially a columnist for our quarterly magazine which gets mailed to 250,000 families.”
 
Chas has become a go-to person for social media in the region. In addition to his highly-praised presentation for EPYSA he also has presented at CoSIDA and ECAC-SIDA and is a regular speaker in college and graduate-level communications classes.
 
His passion is spreading.
 
“I can’t imagine not having passion in this job, I’ve never had to manufacture it or force it. Honestly, it would be disrespectful not to put in your best effort for your programs and people,” noted Dorman.
“I love being a part of the teams, and the coaches I’ve worked best with have included me as a part of their program. Whether it’s athletic or academics, it’s hard not to root for these kids.”
 
Chas recently left Penn for a move to the other side of one of the Ivy League’s storied rivalries, replacing his Red and Blue for the Black and Orange of the Princeton Tigers. In addition to being The Boss at Princeton—a title not taken lightly in New Jersey—he also gets an opportunity to work with a sport – ice hockey - that truly is a lifelong passion. And so perhaps over the next few winters a young boy will read the program at Baker Rink during a Princeton men’s hockey game and see that it was put together by Chas Dorman, just as young Chas saw Ed Carpenter’s work all those years ago at BU’s Walter Brown Arena.
 
“On a micro level, I’m excited to work at a place that has high goals and a high level of achievement already,” he said, noting Princeton recently won its 500th Ivy League championship which is tops among the Ancient Eight institutions. “Having a seat at the table for this process is really encouraging. What that means for me long-term, I don’t know, but I love being part of strategic thinking whether it’s day-to-day or long-term. That said, I also love things like being in the locker room or on the bus after a big win. Stuff like that never gets old.”
 
His peers know he’ll continue to succeed.
 
“Chas is one of the special people who make this job worthwhile,” said Dolan. “We’d have a lot fewer people leave the business if they had an office-mate like Chas. In a job where it is easy to get buried in your own work, he takes the time to get to know his co-workers, coaches and student-athletes because he genuinely cares about them. He always knew when I needed a laugh and when I needed a hug.”
 
“Chas will fight tooth and nail to put his athletes on the biggest stage and get them the attention they deserve,” said Treadway. “He firmly believes in innovation and has done a great job to continue to learn new things as time has gone on. He is the ultimate collaborator and knows that it takes a whole team—not just in communications, but with buy-in from the highest levels of an athletic department.”
 
The Rising Star Award represents a nice milestone in Chas’ career and had allowed him some time to think about the people who brought him along and remain influential in his life.
 
“I’ve always been impressed by the people in this business,” Dorman concluded. “Tubes (now at Drexel) brought me in and, all these years later, he still looks out for me. Aimee and Mex Carey (now at Michigan State) came into my life when I was a college student, and they’re still mentors and friends. 
 
“It is cool to be recognized for this honor. There are times where I feel like I’ve been in it forever, but I’m also in a position where I’ve still got a lot to learn.”