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Endicott College, Middlebury College and Mississippi State University staffs earn recognition for their innovative projects and initiatives during the 2020-21 academic year.
The inaugural recipients of the newly-created
CoSIDA ChangeMaker Innovation Award have been announced.
Three athletic communications staffs (and colleagues) were selected for their innovative work during the challenging 2020-21 academic year:
Endicott College and
Middlebury College, both NCAA Division III institutions, and NCAA Division I member
Mississippi State.
This new CoSIDA award was created to recognize individual members or staffs who have created and managed innovative content during the current academic year. The purpose is to recognize forward-thinkers who bring new ideas to life — and strengthen the position of SIDs and our work — with special content, a branding and messaging campaign, new storyteller packages, social media initiatives, a digital series, etc.
The winning Endicott initiative was a recruiting strategy collaboration between the SIDs and the Endicott Office of Admissions.
The Middlebury winning entry was the school’s “Leaning Into Discomfort” video series which invited difficult and uncomfortable conversations on topics of race, diversity and identity in the campus community.
For Mississippi State, their recognized initiative revolved around their project “HailState.com Press Box Pages” which housed all Zoom press conference links, live stats access, game notes/boxes, audio files, pool photography, media guides/record books and more.
The contest was open to any current CoSIDA individual member or team of college athletics communications professionals. If they collaborated on an initiative with department or campus/conference colleagues, the initiative had to include at least one current CoSIDA member who was integral to the project.
“CoSIDA represents a profession that epitomizes creativity, innovation and collaboration. We take great pride in the opportunity to acknowledge and honor those CoSIDA members who have opened the door to ingenuity, resourcefulness and originality in their work,” noted Doug Vance, CoSIDA Executive Director. “We congratulate our first ChangeMaker Innovation Award recipients from Endicott College, Middlebury College and Mississippi State. The examples they set serve to inspire future change makers.”
Here is a closer look at the Changemaker Award recipients for 2020-21.
Endicott College: Admissions Zoom Recruiting Strategy Campaign
Submitted by: Shawn Medeiros, Sports Information Director
Project Participants: Medeiros; George Chapell, Assistant SID; Anthony Rinaldi, Sports Information Graduate Assistant; Chris Lipscomb, former Senior Assistant Director of Admissions; Thomas Majkut, AV Systems Manager - Audio Visual Services; Sean Quirk, Associate Athletic Director/Admission Liaison.
The Endicott sports information staff played a major role in two separate Office of Admissions Zooms that targeted student-athletes in the classes of 2021 (December) and 2022 (January). With no on-campus visits possible during COVID-19, they were tasked with the creation of each Zoom, which included breakout rooms for more than 21 sports — including club sports — and the operations, logistics, & developed the marketing of both Zooms prior to, during, and post when they happened.
Additionally, the SID staff created an enhanced marketing strategy before, during and after those sessions to bolster Endicott’s strategy in publicizing the full NCAA Division III student-athlete experience for recruits as they researched attending Endicott. All coaches shared stories which were featured on
https://endicott.prestosports.com/EndicottExperience/index as well as unique recruiting pages and a "Why Endicott?" page as part of their recruiting strategies.
Nearly 600 prospective student-athletes and family members attended the Zooms. The Admissions Office goal was to recruit 215 student-athletes to the College for 2021; that was exceeded as 269 student-athletes were brought in.
“The Zoom discussions and webpages created a direct impact on admissions and recruiting, even more so than we normally do with our year-long holistic marketing strategy that publicizes internships, outcomes, study abroad and community service,” noted Medeiros. “We believe we market these more consistently than other institutions in NCAA Division III. Our strategies were able to impact 267 prospective student-athletes from the class of 2021 and 301 prospective student-athletes from the class of 2022.
"CoSIDA has been calling for SIDs to have a seat at the table, to showcase how our skills are transferable and can impact the bottom line, and we believe this initiative highlights how we truly impact recruiting and the reputation of Endicott College.”
Middlebury College: "Leaning Into Discomfort" Video Series
Submitted by: Ali Paquette, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications
Project Participants: The Leaning Into Discomfort (LID) Subcommittee: Paquette; Jeff Brown, Head Men's Basketball Coach/NCAA DEI liaison; Michael Carr, Assistant Football Coach / DEI Cohort Chair; Jourdon Delerme-Brown '21, Co-president of the Student-Athletes of Color Organization; Savannah Morgan, former Women's Basketball Assistant Coach; Ellie Thompson '22, Co-president of the Student-Athletes of Color Organization.
Link to video series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0p4R6TotbOIHvwcjITMN8vEalCRrNzLP
The “Leaning Into Discomfort” video series from Middlebury Athletics was sponsored by the athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and aimed to have uncomfortable conversations surrounding topics such as race, inclusion, equity and inclusion. Throughout the 16-part series, the Middlebury campus was drawn together and the videos and subsequent conversations normalized discussion on these uncomfortable yet important topics, including: kneeling for the National Anthem, sexual orientation, dealing with anxiety, apparent and non-apparent disabilities, body image, and George Floyd's murder and its impact. The episodes featured current athletes, alumni, staff, faculty and members from the greater Middlebury College community.
The series garnered praise from all areas of the Middlebury community.
As Paquette noted, “Bridging gaps between athletics and the greater Middlebury College community has allowed for discussion across different areas. We have been praised regularly by the President of the college and the Chief Diversity Officer for how this series and the DEI committee's work is leading the overall change of culture on campus.”
Mississippi State: HailState.com Press Box Pages
Submitted by: Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications
Project Participants: Brandon Langlois, Associate AD/Communications; Ogden; Matt Dunaway, Associate Director/Communications; Greg Campbell, Assistant Director/Communications; Mikaela Elizonda, Communications Graduate Assistant.
“With press boxes limited and in-person media availability shut down during the pandemic, Mississippi State built out new Press Box pages for each of our major sports. Many schools have media landing pages, but what made MSU’s unique was the inclusion of all Zoom links on a password-protected site and easy access to media downloads and the usual PDFs that would've been printed and handed out in the past,” noted Ogden in his submission for the award.
These pages housed all Zoom links for pre-game and postgame press conferences. Media members could also access live stats, box scores, game notes, pool photography, logo downloads and media guides/record books. Initially built for football, the webpages were so successful that the staff built a slightly modified version for men's basketball, baseball and softball.
MSU also offered quick access audio file downloads once they learned that their writers, who had to use headphones to participate from the same press box to avoid feedback, had no way to record audio like they were used to in the past.
The links to each page are below. The football press box is linked in URL submission space below as well.
Football: https://hailstate.com/sports/2020/9/10/football-pressbox.aspx
Men's Basketball: https://hailstate.com/sports/2020/11/11/mens-basketball-pressbox.aspx
Baseball: https://hailstate.com/sports/2021/1/21/baseball-pressbox.aspx
Softball: https://hailstate.com/sports/2021/1/14/softball-pressbox.aspx