Related Content
•
CoSIDA.com/CoSIDA360 Magazine Archive
Note: This story appeared in the Spring 2021 May edition of CoSIDA 360 Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
Also read:
Cover Story Part 3
Elevating Creative Services at Small Schools
ADs who support their SIDs with added full-time creative colleagues will have an advantage over those who try to get by with a one-person shop.
by Ali Paquette – Middlebury College, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications @_alipaquette
Creative services are drastically changing the landscape in the field of sports information. What was once a career focused on statistical inputting, writing game recaps, and record keeping, is now stretching deep into the world of digital marketing and branding. As the demand for photography, videography, graphic design and social media management increases, smaller schools at the NAIA, NCAA Division II and NCAA Division III levels are struggling to keep up.
“If you were to put a dollar amount on the exposure that institutions get from creative services through athletics, especially on the digital side with social outlets, it would be off the charts,” said Slippery Rock’s Director of Athletic Communications Jon Holtz. “Yet it is very rare to see small schools with exclusive positions for creative services, and the ones that do have a position for those services are often not full-time. The more elaborate the Division I athletic departments content becomes; the more administrators and coaches expect that kind of thing to be repeatable at smaller schools. Unfortunately, people don’t understand that a Division I institution might have 10 or more people working on football creative in a single day, while most Division II and Division III schools have one or two people total for all of the creative, social, video and traditional SID duties like stats, game notes, programs, recaps, archiving, record keeping, award nominating for all sports.”
So how do small schools add and enhance creative services when they have smaller budgets and less resources than most Division I universities? We spoked to several talented professionals in the creative realm and three common themes came up: prioritizing creative work, relying on the resources you do have (student workers), and continuing to advocate for what your office needs.
“I knew I was on the right path when I was in the athletic training room one day and a student-athlete asked me what I do. Rather than go into the drawn-out, long-winded, detailed description of my job, I simply said, ‘Do you follow GoSuffolkRams? I do that.’ I’ll never forget his response, ‘Your graphics are one of the reasons I chose Suffolk.’” – Amy Barry
No. 1 Prioritizing the work
Prioritizing what work is most important to your school, athletic department and sports information office can help you evaluate how to make space and time for creative services. This may mean eliminating things that once were standard across the industry, or it might mean becoming more efficient in other areas.
When Amy Barry arrived at Suffolk University six years ago, she sat on the floor in her new office. Surrounded by bare walls and shelving, she established a marketing and branding plan for the Rams, focusing on seven key principles she learned as an intern at Harvard: sustain excellence, have a weekly plan, outwork everybody, pay attention to detail, improve, be intentional, and set your goals high.
“Graphic design and creating is one of my favorite things about this job,” said Barry. “Not only do I enjoy it, but the student-athletes do as well. That’s why I prioritize it.”
While Holtz and his office don’t always have the time for all of the creative content he would like, he has made it a priority to ensure that the content is unique.
“I want our stuff to be exclusive and not look like anyone else’s,” Holtz said. “I want people to see something while they are scrolling and know it came from Slippery Rock, before they even see our logo or read any of the text.”
Every school is different but establishing and outlining how you will weave creative services into your daily duties is key to ensuring that you can keep up with the growing demands. Sometimes prioritizing the work means adding positions or restructuring the current roles that you have.
When Kyeongjun Lee started his position at Texas A&M-Commerce in 2017, he was an intern and there was not a specific position dedicated to creative services. As Lee’s skillset grew, so did the trust and support of the Director of Athletics, Tim McMurray, and the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Communications, Josh Manck. Now, four years later, Lee is the full-time Director of Creative Services.
“This position would not have been created, or evolved, without Tim and Josh,” said Lee.
Kyeongjun Lee is the Director of Creative Services at Texas A&M - Commerce. Lee is a regular winner in the CoSIDA Publications & Digital Design contests.
No. 2 Student workers play an important role, but are not the complete answer
With limited resources and shrinking budgets, adding a full-time position is rarely a possibility at small schools, so it can be daunting to think about how to add extra work to an already overflowing cup. Many schools that have been successful in enhancing their creative services have one thing in common; they have turned to their students to help with these efforts.
“One of the biggest assets that I’ve found is utilizing students on campus,” said Babson College’s Athletics’ Marketing & New Media Specialist Temi Bajulaiye. “Whether it’s for social media, shooting photos or video, or just helping to keep things organized, student workers are critical in smaller departments.
“There’s no perfect model for what a student worker should do. We have student workers that love photography, so their role is to come to games to shoot photos. We also have student workers who don’t want to be working at games and they assist in managing our media archives during the week.”
Using student workers can be a great solution for schools that offer work study positions for the student body, but how do you find these talented students?
“On pretty much any college campus, there are brilliant and talented designers, photographers, videographers, and creative minds — the key is simply to find them,” said Corban University’s Associate Athletic Director Jarrett Thoren. “There could be classes where these types of students are more likely to congregate; or, if the institution is anything like mine, there aren’t. Finding the talented, creative student minds requires digging around a deeper, asking coaches what they know about their student-athletes, or surfing through some social media. The good news is this: once you’ve prioritized creativity for a few years, those talented students start coming to you, and not vice versa.”
“We need to realize there are a lot of students who want to gain experience working in the sports industry and creating content,” said Lee. “They need experiences to start their career, and we need people to teach them to help us look great.”
Although using student workers can be very helpful in easing some of the burdens on the department, they should not be looked to in place of a full-time professional or a restructuring of the department.
Training students takes a lot of time, and even the best of them are only around for four years. This means a considerable and consistent amount of time will go toward training students each year, which means even less time for adding in creative services.
Students can also be unreliable compared to a full-time professional. At the end of the day, a student’s first priority is their education, so they will have conflicts that interfere with work. Hiring student workers is great. However, continue the conversations and advocacy on adding a full-time creative services position, or restructuring the department to include this important position.
Jarrett Thoren, a former CoSIDA Academic All-America® baseball player, is the Associate Athletic Director at alma mater Corban University.
No. 3 Advocacy
Advocating for your department’s necessities is essential and will be specific to each school’s needs.
“If a tree falls in a forest, but no one is around to hear it, then no one cares that the tree fell,” said Thoren. “The same can be said for sports information. If your student-athletes are excelling in their sport, but no one knows about it, then it’s a wasted opportunity to tell the story of your institution.”
“The advocacy piece includes making people aware of what your content is doing,” Barry mentioned, “I knew I was on the right path when I was in the athletic training room one day and a student-athlete asked me what I do. Rather than go into the drawn-out, long-winded, detailed description of my job, I simply said, ‘Do you follow GoSuffolkRams? I do that.’ I’ll never forget his response, ‘Your graphics are one of the reasons I chose Suffolk.’”
As Lee outlined, sometimes demonstrating your skills can lead to growth within the department, and there are a lot of positives for adding creative positions at smaller schools.
“All schools have marketing departments on campus that can help athletics from time to time to create video feature and aid in branding,” said Bajulaiye. “However, having an individual (or individuals) within athletics allows not just more stories to be told, but arguably better stories. Student-athletes, like most people, are more likely to open up and be themselves around someone they see often and are comfortable around.”
Even if your school doesn’t currently have the budget to add a full-time position, the conversation should be a constant one. Show your boss what you could be doing with another full-time creative communicator, and how that helps the college or university’s overarching mission and goals.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced everyone in the world to rethink how they work and sped up the learning curve for operating in a digital world. Many schools have realized the impact that athletics communications professionals can have on recruiting and fundraising. From virtual visits to storytelling, the shifts from the pandemic will force schools to reconsider their priorities heading into the post-pandemic era, where we will hopefully see an uptick in creative services at smaller institutions with the addition of added positions.
Temi Bajulaiye is Babson College’s Athletics Marketing & New Media Specialist, working alongside Associate AD for Strategic Communications Scott Dietz.
Jon Holtz is the Director of Athletic Communication at Slippery Rock.
Talk about these stories on the
CoSIDA Slack Community.