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Note: This story appeared in the Winter 2021 February edition of CoSIDA 360 Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
Tweet Storm
Following the news of massive layoffs at another institution, North Carolina’s Steve Kirschner produced a series of eight tweets that served as a reminder of the many roles SIDs take on. The response was enormous.
by Steve Kirschner – University of North Carolina, Senior Associate AD for Communications
Back in October, I authored a series of eight tweets detailing many of the duties of a sports information director, an exercise I did ostensibly to answer a question posed to
The Stadium’s college basketball writer, Jeff Goodman, on his Twitter feed.
His follower simply asked what does an SID do? Initially I thought it would be fun to pass along a list that my colleague Kevin Best and I had compiled in recent years, whose origin was to put into buckets the various tasks that the SIDs, or communications staff, handled. Each of our external relations units at the University of North Carolina compiled similar lists as we were searching for ways to maximize efficiencies and produce content in a more coordinated fashion.
It was a list we created some five years ago and then added to in subsequent years. The list I tweeted included roughly 50 duties, although many have multiple tasks associated with them. And by no means was it ever intended to be an exhaustive list — I knew there were many job functions that SIDs across North America perform on a regular basis, or sometimes in a pinch, that I neglected to include.
I knew the list might miss some of the jobs SIDs execute, particularly at schools that have fewer people and other resources that are available to some of us. There are countless PR offices where it’s a one- or two-person staff, and others where they are not just the SID, but perhaps also coach, faculty, or even a member of the field staff.
But beyond answering Goodman’s question, there was probably a second reason for tweeting. I simply wanted people to know — in a time when COVID-19 has decimated budgets — that SIDs play key roles in the life of an athletic department, and thought it necessary to remind people of all that we do.
I had also just learned several members of another school’s athletic communications staff had been let go in the middle of the football season, with basketball just weeks from its start. I knew several of the people who had been let go; one was a student I worked with at Carolina almost 30 years ago; another had superbly coordinated media relations at an NCAA basketball regional we played in recently. They weren’t the first, and certainly not the last, people to lose their jobs due to the financial nightmare all businesses are dealing with as result of the pandemic. But theirs hit a nerve with me.
SIDs have always had to explain to people what we do. I began working in this profession as a student assistant at Connecticut in 1985 and have always felt we did a better job of promoting our student-athletes, coaches and teams than ourselves — which is how it should be. But in a time when athletics departments stand to lose tens of millions of dollars, SIDs should rightly be concerned about where those cuts will fall and take steps to solidify their roles within their departments.
The collective response to the tweets in October was way beyond what was intended (since I didn’t really intend for them to cause much of any reaction, the fact so many people weighed in was rather amazing). They obviously hit some nerves of their own. I was proud of our colleagues for their many responses and the way SIDs stood up for each other and the profession. I appreciated the many media members who also showed their support, often for the SIDs they deal with in their own backyards. I laughed at the additions to the list, kicking myself for not having included so many worthy ideas.
Mostly I appreciated the fact that others in the world of college athletics — from media, to conference commissioners, athletic directors, coaches, and people from other work groups — chimed in to say they get what we do. They perhaps hadn’t noticed, realized or remembered SIDs do all that, but they read the tweets, they thought about what their SID does for them, and they get it.
I think I get it, too. The budget situation is dire, and athletic directors at pretty much every institution have been forced to make cuts, and will continue to look at places to save money for at least the next several years. I was on the budget committee at Carolina for more than 15 years; I know the numbers and the challenges are going to be daunting. We are fortunate at UNC that our athletic director, Bubba Cunningham, has done everything he can to avoid having to cut full-time personnel, not just in communications, but all departments. Yes, we’ve had to eliminate several intern positions, and we lost a couple of outstanding young SIDs as a result. People have had to pick up new sports as well, but our department’s priority has been to maintain full-time positions and make sure we continue to offer our student-athletes the best overall experience possible.
Whether it’s traditional SID duties, or using newer tools such as graphics and videos, Cunningham’s charge to us has been to continue to be as versatile and stay as modern as we can. Don’t just embrace the traditional roles of an SID; keep up with the changes in technology and new ways to deliver our message to a growing and diverse range of those who need to receive that information.
Kevin Best and I created the list because in a day and age when so much emphasis was being placed on social media, graphics and video, we wanted to demonstrate that SIDs, particularly those working with sports other than football, basketball or whatever sport is among the highest-profile programs at one’s institution, are actively engaged in delivering content in this way. They just happen to be doing that at the same time they are doing all of the other “traditional” duties, as well.
Our football, and men’s and women’s basketball programs have an army of people dedicated to creating and distributing content including videographers and photographers, video editors, social media managers, SIDs, graphics designers, and marketers. Part of why I tweeted was to point out that for most sports at most schools, the SID does all of the above and then some.
So yes, there are some challenging days ahead. We will be playing 27 sports plus spring football this semester, and thank God we will. SIDs and other creative staff will play a huge part in telling the stories of those student-athletes, coaches and teams. All they want is that opportunity.
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