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Note: This story appeared in the Summer 2020 September edition of CoSIDA 360 Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
Understanding What CoSIDA Does Under the Heading of Advocacy
by Doug Vance – CoSIDA Executive Director
I’m proud of the job I have and the work I do, but I’ll always be the last one to bring it up. And I know I’m just like many of you. We chose a role in athletic communications so we wouldn’t have to talk about ourselves or be the center of attention. We take joy in telling the stories of others and doing our jobs behind the scenes. But, just like any movie, sometimes the protagonist needs to emerge from the shadows and begin the journey to bigger things by standing up for themselves.
In a half-serious effort to remind Sam Atkinson of what lies ahead after he virtually accepted the CoSIDA presidential gavel, I shared a quote from the movie
A Bug’s Life that is offered by Hopper, the one-eyed grasshopper.
“The first rule of leadership,” suggested Hopper, “is that everything is your fault.”
The idea underscores the fact that there isn’t much difference in the responsibility of leadership whether you’re at the top of the ladder of CoSIDA or running things in the insect kingdom.
In the case of CoSIDA, the total burden of overseeing how we function is not solely on the shoulders of the association president or the national staff. It’s shared by a team of officers and executive board members, an advisory council, those serving on seven divisional cabinets, committee chairs and just over 500 committee members.
Our strength and effectiveness grows when we can get a consensus of leaders pulling the rope in the same direction.
To be a strong, effective and — most importantly — a relevant organization we also need buy-in to the leadership responsibility from our entire membership base. That’s a critical component for any non-profit association to be successful.
We all understand the painful dynamics that have been bombarding our jobs and lives over the past five months. It’s a world fraught with uncertainty.
Those fears specific to our profession are breeding a growing anxiety about job security which, in some instances, signals the alarm for help. People want to pinpoint exactly how CoSIDA is looking out for their interests and advocating on their behalf.
Which invites another important question. Do our members realize the scope of our commitment to the concept of advocacy?
Advocacy is a core principal that defines our purpose and drives our mission as a nonprofit organization and will be for the foreseeable future. It’s a daily endeavor but not always visible to our members.
Allow me to explain the reason why.
Legendary basketball coach Dean Smith once said: “You should never be proud of doing the right thing. You just do it.”
By and large, that’s how CoSIDA often treats its efforts in advocacy. We don’t flaunt the many strategies we’ve designed on the advocacy front. We calculate what needs done and we do it.
Also in play, I suspect, is that not everything we do to elevate our profession is clearly defined as being under the advocacy umbrella. Evidence to that fact can be found in the list of activities at the end of this story.
Patting ourselves on the back for fulfilling the expectations of our jobs is not something on our checklist of duties. It never has been. And, I’m relatively certain it’s also not a goal for our members in performing their own work tasks.
It’s a fair question to ask what CoSIDA does in the name of advocacy. It’s also not unreasonable for CoSIDA to seek an understanding of what its members are doing to advocate for themselves. It stands to reason that an SID — known for their skills as storytellers and gaining recognition for others — are the most qualified to tell their own stories when lobbying for enhancements to their jobs.
We are known for our prowess in promoting student-athletes and our caution in doing the same for ourselves. Maybe that plays a role into why we are sometimes undervalued.
How can we get our members to unmask this imbalance? Or, how do we take a weakness and turn it into a strength?
CoSIDA has a responsibility to help our members grow their advocacy skills and build their own toolbox of resources. It’s not hard to envision the possibilities if we could harness our advocacy strength with the majority of our members putting their skills in a campaign for themselves and the profession.
What I’m suggesting is that our advocacy punch could be most effective with the combined strength of a focused campaign at both the national and local levels. Making our members better advocates on their campuses is already on the radar of CoSIDA’s Advocacy Committee. It’s also been singled out as a vital strategy by both the CoSIDA staff and board of directors.
One example to illustrate that emphasis was the compensation and career satisfaction survey data CoSIDA developed and unveiled in a five-part series just as the pandemic struck. That should prove to be a valuable tool for our members when they want to make the case for more resources and higher wages.
Before coming to CoSIDA, I spent nine years as Executive Director of the Kansas Recreation and Park Association. The job included serving as a sanctioned lobbyist and dealing with legislators at both the state and national levels. I testified numerous times as part of legislative hearings and annually attended advocacy training in Washington, D.C., while also meeting with members of Congress to fight for important causes.
That background provides me with an understanding of what effective advocacy looks like and the effort it takes. Experience has taught me that in advocacy, much like college sports, you are going to have a record of both wins and losses. It doesn’t always matter if you’re on the right side of a cause.
In simple terms, advocacy is about convincing others to join you in support of a cause or idea. The devil is in the details when it comes to aligning your ideas to the point they convince your target audience to jump on board.
There’s old adage that I often use when discussing this topic: “If you are not
at the table, you may be
on the table.”
For many years, CoSIDA was viewed as an organization with two primary missions: running a convention and coordinating the Academic All-America® program. Today’s CoSIDA is much more than a two-trick pony.
In my years as an SID, it never crossed my mind that it was CoSIDA’s responsibility to determine the perception of my office or influence the resources I received. At the end of the day, our performance was the sole influencer of how we were valued.
Unlike our positioning throughout much of our history, CoSIDA now has a seat at the college sports leadership table. As someone who has been active in this profession for nearly four decades, I’m in a position to evaluate the significant progress we’ve made in terms of how we are perceived.
Our organization has a presence and is respected. We meet regularly with top leaders of the college sports industry and those who influence it all levels.
But, as we all understand, there will always be those brick-wall attitudes among closed-minded administrators and coaches who have no appetite for any persuasive argument you can offer.
Regardless, there are no lost causes in the realm of advocacy.
All that being said, I don’t want to paint a false narrative. These are painful times and it’s difficult for any of us to feel optimistic about the immediate future. I can assure you that the welfare of our membership is the top priority for everyone associated with leadership in CoSIDA.
We all accept that burden of leadership and understand rule one as quoted by the grasshopper.
As mentioned earlier, in recent weeks I’ve had several discussions with members who are curious about the total advocacy picture for CoSIDA. That’s because we’ve not put it under the magnifying glass for display.
Those discussions have convinced me of the need to bring our thought process on advocacy into a better light so everyone has a complete understanding of that mission. We plan to do that more often in the months ahead.
At right is a partial list of resources and strategies that form our advocacy arsenal. What’s missing are the many relationships we’ve built and continue to foster with people of influence.
Quite often the most effective path in raising support is simply raising friends.
CoSIDA’s Road to Advocacy
Where It Brings a Voice of Influence
- Advocacy Committee: policy guidance and strategy development with a think-tank of leaders representing all levels of members
- Compensation and Career Satisfaction Survey: data for members to use in improving salary and resource support
- CoSIDA Convention as part of NACDA Convention Week: provides endless opportunities to advocate on behalf of the membership
- CoSIDA Leadership Forum and June Stewart Leadership Series
- Diversity & Inclusion Committee: education and insight into racial and social justice concerns, gender equity, LGBTQA+ and ADA
- NCAA Inclusion Forum
- NCAA Convention: meetings with ADs and President Mark Emmert
- NAIA Convention: meetings with ADs and President Jim Carr
- Officers and staff summer meetings with NCAA Governance leaders at all levels
- NACDA Mid-Winter Meeting with athletic directors of influence
- The opportunity to have the attention of NCAA Division I athletic directors with attendance at the LEAD1 Convention
- Women Leaders in College Sports Convention: networking with key stakeholders and leaders
- Collegiate Athletic Leadership Symposium (CALS): more exposure with key leaders and those of influence
- Partnership with the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
- Annual CoSIDA progress updates to NCAA leadership groups representing NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and Public & Media Relations
- NCAA Communications Summit: joining with conference communication office leaders
- Participation on Monthly NCAA Communication Office calls
- Attendance at national championship events (CFP National Championship; Men’s and Women’s Final Four)
- National Football Foundation events in New York City
- Participation in educational presentations at the NABC convention
- Partnerships with the FWAA, USBWA and the WBCA.
- Corporate partnerships with the NCAA, major bowls, television networks, College Football Playoff and national award organizations
CoSIDA Advocacy Resources
- CoSIDA 360 Magazine (mailed to members, athletic directors and conference commissioners)
- Annual CoSIDA Convention
- Outreach on a nationwide basis to bring the spotlight on our members during CoSIDA Membership Recognition Week
- Academic All-America® Program & Academic All-America® Hall of Fame which represents CoSIDA’s signature program and helps define our commitment to support of student-athlete achievement
- Letters of appreciation acknowledging CoSIDA leadership service to athletics directors
- National Championship SID Award program
- CoSIDA Code of Ethics: establishing of standards of excellence
- CoSIDA has been a leader in prioritizing change through the establishment of a Diversity & Inclusion Value Statement
- Growth through opportunities for leadership by involvement with the Executive Board of Directors and by serving as divisional cabinet chairs or committee chairs