College Sports Information Directors of America

Related Content
• CoSIDA.com/CoSIDA360 Archive

---

View more: CoSIDA 360 - September 2021

Cover Story

The Power of Creative Collaboration: CoSIDA's ChangeMaker Innovation Awards 

Breakthrough creativity happens when everyone's at the table. Go behind the scenes with the 2021 ChangeMaker Award winners to see their innovative strategies and project results as these athletics communicators and their colleagues rose to Covid-19 era creative challenges.

by Barb Kowal – CoSIDA Director of External Affairs and Professional Development  @austinbarb

Right before Covid-19 hit, there was discussion by the CoSIDA staff and some friends of CoSIDA about honoring the innovation and creative work of athletic communicators. We settled on an innovation-type award, something CoSIDA did not have among its Special Awards. Then, with the tumultuous environment 2020 brought forth with COVID-19 and social, equity and racial issues, it just made sense to introduce the ChangeMaker Innovation Award and subsequently, name winners for the 2020-21 academic year. This new CoSIDA award was created to recognize individual members or staffs who have created and managed innovative content during the current academic year.
 
With the delay or absence of sports and all the current events taking place, we knew there were some shining examples of communications, branding and collaborative projects happening on campuses and at conference offices.
 
 
Additionally, there have been studies revealing how the PR sector has risen to the unique creative challenges of the COVID-19 era, with the vast majority reporting that creativity has taken on a much higher priority over the past 18 months. The same is true for athletic communications offices and our members.
 
As we began to receive nominations for the ChangeMaker, we watched our members bringing colleagues to the table, resulting in creative work that is relevant, original, impactful, content that also accomplishes goals … and inspires more great work.
 
These nominations fulfilled the purpose of the ChangeMaker honor: 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.

Three winners were chosen for the inaugural award: NCAA Division I Mississippi State, and Endicott College and Middlebury College from NCAA Division III. 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, its' recognized initiative revolved around the 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.
 
Here's a closer look at the winning entries.

---

 
ENDICOTT COLLEGE: Collaboration on a Office of Admissions Zoom series
 
Team Members Recognized:
Shawn Medeiros (Sports Information Director)
George Chapell '08 (Men's Volleyball Head Coach/Assistant SID)
Anthony Rinaldi '19 M'21 (former SID Graduate Assistant)
Sean Quirk (Associate Athletic Director/Admission Liaison)
Chris Lipscomb '17 M'18 (former Senior Assistant Director of Admissions)
Thomas Majkut '08 (AV Systems Manager).

The winning initiative created by all three departments at the NCAA Division III school was an Office of Admissions Zoom series that targeted student-athletes in the classes of 2021 (December) and 2022 (January). With COVID-19 canceling all on-campus visits, the challenge was to better connect to prospective student-athletes and get them more access to coaches.
 

“This series proved the value that athletic communicators have, when the right people are pulled into conversations. In our structure, it’s advantageous to have the tight relationship and reporting line between Athletics and Admissions. To me, at least at the D3 level, we need to consider a shift in our priorities within our profession. If there were a way to structure our jobs and departments where admissions recruiting was more of a focal point of being a SID/athletic communicator, more people outside of athletics would find value in our roles versus just assuming we work games and handle video and websites." - Shawn Medeiros, Endicott Sports Information Director

After conversations between admissions and athletics, the SID staff suggested the idea to develop a Zoom series. Once Medeiros and his staff figured out logistics with AV Systems Manager Thomas Majkut, they proposed the Admissions Zoom Series to Senior Admissions Director Chris Lipscomb, Assistant VP/Director of Athletics Dr. Brian A. Wylie and Meghan Monaco (Dean of Admissions) for approval. 

Each department was then tasked with the creation of each Zoom, which included breakout rooms for more than 21 sports — including club sports. These individuals also were responsible for the operations, logistics and marketing plans for the Zooms prior to, during, and after they took place.

Additionally, the SID staff, led by Medeiros, created an enhanced marketing strategy to bolster the full NCAA Division III student-athlete experience that recruits could expect at Endicott. All coaches shared stories that were featured on the Endicott Experience website, on sport-specific recruiting pages and a "Why Endicott?" page as part of their recruiting strategies.

Nearly 600 prospective student-athletes and family members attended the Zooms.

“We worked closely with the Admissions Operations and Analytics team to communicate with our prospective student-athletes and their families through our normal channels to lead them to the Zoom session,” Medeiros noted. “The Zoom moderators were (Senior Assistant Admissions Director) Chris Lipscomb and our AD, Dr. Brian A. Wylie, while I served as the IT person. Each Zoom started off with a 15-20 minute pitch of Endicott and ended with all student-athletes meeting their potential coaches in breakout rooms. Chris and I monitored the zoom ‘lobby’ to answer any questions student-athletes and their families had, which were many.”
 
There were significant project takeaways for the Endicott community.
 
 
“Recruiting 215 student-athletes to the College - in an overall class of 830 for 2021-22 - was our department goal,” stated Quirk. “We exceeded our department goal and brought in 269 recruited student-athletes. With their marketing and promotions, the SID staff contributed tremendously to the overall class of 830 first-time freshman and 40 transfer students as they promoted the College’s internship program, study abroad opportunities and community service outreaches, among many others. The athletic administrators and Admissions Office have a deep admiration and appreciation for work the Endicott Sports Information Department contributes, to make Endicott College a thriving and vibrant institution.”
 
“This series proved the value that athletic communicators have, when the right people are pulled into conversations,” Medeiros noted. “In our structure, it’s advantageous to have the tight relationship and reporting line between Athletics and Admissions. To me, at least at the D3 level, we need to consider a shift in our priorities within our profession. If there were a way to structure our jobs and departments where admissions recruiting was more of a focal point of being a SID/athletic communicator, more people outside of athletics would find value in our roles versus just assuming we work games and handle video and websites.
 
With a plan in place, maybe an SID can acquire more help if they showcase to the proper people what the athletic communications office can do to further promote the school and help recruitment and retention.”
 
And, as Medeiros acknowledges, there is no plan unless you have constant communications and build trust with your leadership.
 
“An SID has to have constant conversations with their AD about these types of projects,” Medeiros stated. “Does the SID know their ADs' goals, Admissions' goals? If an SID wants to make an impact beyond their office they have to pick up the phone, or ask people for meetings. Are you intentional about putting aside time to think more in-depth about certain aspects of the job? How often are you asking your coaches what challenges they are facing in the recruiting process? It mainly comes down to asking thought-provoking and consistent questions. The more you have these intentional conversations the more you are going to be thought of in these farther-reaching ways.”

---

 

MISSISSIPPI STATE AWARD:  HailState.com Press Box Pages

Team Members Recognized:
Brandon Langlois, Associate AD/Communications
Matt Dunaway, Associate Director/Communications
Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications
Greg Campbell, Assistant Director/Communications
Mikaela Elizondo, Graduate Assistant/Communications
 
With in-person media availabilities shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mississippi State athletic communications staff built out new web-based Press Box pages for each of their major sports via HailState.com Press Box Pages.

Many schools have media landing pages, but what made MSU’s unique was the inclusion of all Zoom links on a password-protected site, plus easy access to media downloads and all the usual PDFs that previously would have been printed and handed out.

These pages housed all Zoom links for press conferences during the week and following each game. Media members could also access live stats, box scores, game notes, courtesy pool photography shots, logo downloads and media guides/record books.

“Initially built for football, we saw enough success with the page and resources that we built a slightly modified version for men's basketball, baseball and softball,” said Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications for the Bulldogs.

The project was headed by Ogden and assistant director Greg Campbell for football, baseball and softball. Associate director Matt Dunaway and graduate assistant Mikaela Elizondo developed and maintained the page for men's basketball.
 

“We are so proud of our athletic communications crew and the innovative work they did to enhance their relationships and work with the media as they told the stories of our student-athletes and teams,” said Leah Beasley, MSU Deputy Athletic Director/External Affairs.

The financial investment for Hail.com Press Pages? None.

As Ogden states, “it was simply a matter of our staff’s time. We actually looked to a page Penn State had built out previously to house transcripts and quickie stats on gamedays, and that became a great roadmap for football. It took us half a day to build. We tweaked and added to it as we went along.

For men’s basketball, there was a more design work since it didn’t easily fit into the week leading up to a single game type of timeline. I sketched some options out on my white board, and then Mikaela and I spent an afternoon building the code and Googling HTML lessons when we got stuck trying to make the page do what we had envisioned. Baseball and softball were almost exact copies of the basketball page.”
 

After some time educating the media on how to find their press conference Zoom links on the Press Pages, the response and feedback from the media was positive, which also led to ongoing site and resource enhancements.

“For the media, the Press Pages was a one-stop shop,” notes Ben Portnoy, new The State’s South Carolina Gamecocks football beat writer who previously covered Mississippi State for the Columbus Commercial Dispatch. “It was efficient and easy to use. During CoVID and our remote work, we found it a super helpful resource; you flip open one tab and have easy access to game notes, courtesy photos, video, press conference access, the works. The SIDs need to do their post-game jobs and so do we. It expedited the process for everyone.”

MSU added some additional functionalities to the pages as the year went on based off the feedback from media members like Portnoy. For instance, realizing that the media members had no way to record audio like they were used to as they had to combat feedback in the press box by wearing headphones in Zoom interviews, MSU staffers began offering quick access audio file downloads from the interview sessions.

Analytics wise, the average time spent on the page during the football season was 3:39 seconds. MSU’s baseball and men’s basketball pages got twice as much traffic as football’s, and softball was about two-thirds of the football traffic.

What’s in the future for these Press Pages?

“As things try to get back to normal, Zoom links won’t be as much of a need. We do anticipate at some point redesigning our public-facing game notes landing pages to adopt a look more like these as we’ve seen the great benefits and positive feedback,” Ogden concluded.

The links to each 2020 HailState.com page are below. 

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

“Building out a Press Pages model is something that other athletic communications offices could adopt and set up, as there are so many moving pieces in covering teams, even as we return to in-person contact,” Portnoy noted. “Given what can be the insanity of post-game football, with so many moving parts, this was an excellent go-to resource. Kudos to the Mississippi State staff for doing this.”

---

 

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE: Leaning Into Discomfort Series

Team Members Recognized:
Members of the Middlebury Athletics’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee:
Erin Quinn (Director of Athletics)
Jeff Brown (Head Men’s Basketball Coach)
Ali Paquette (Assistant Director of Athletic Communications)
Nate Stewart (football, Co-President of Student-Athletes of Color)
Ellie Thompson (swimming and diving, Co-President of Student-Athletes of Color)

“The Leaning Into Discomfort series has presented us with a tremendous opportunity to explore topics of identity and intersectionality as a community, from a range of perspectives, in an open and honest way. At its best, Middlebury embraces the tough issues with all the challenges that such issues entail. I am thrilled that our leaders are being honored by CoSIDA for this important initiative. 

I am so proud of Middlebury students, staff, and faculty for taking the lead on this essential conversation—one that needs to take place in a local way, with local leadership, across the country. And, perhaps most importantly, we rejoice with the recognition that the work is incomplete and must continue.”

 - Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton

 
Middlebury College’s entry for the ChangeMaker Award was its “Leaning Into Discomfort” video series, created in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by the Middlebury Athletics’ Diversity, Equity Committee to recognize and acknowledge their need to serve Black student-athletes better using Emmanual Acho’s Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man series as inspiration.
 
 
The goal with this series was to serve as a starting place for normalizing the discussion around uncomfortable and timely topics such as race, inclusion, equity and inclusion, while learning and growing strong together as a community. 
 
Sponsored by the Athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, the 16-part series drew the Middlebury campus together, with subsequent conversations normalizing discussion on 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 did the ChangeMaker Award itself.
 

“We are honored to receive the CoSIDA ChangeMaker Award, and it is particularly gratifying because our student-athletes played such a central role in the development and production of the Leaning Into Discomfort series. Particular thanks go out to our Assistant Director of Athletic Communications Ali Paquette who took the lead role on our staff on the project. We were all grateful to have the opportunity to participate in the series with the hope that our vulnerability in having what can be uncomfortable conversations, and having them publicly, will help to model the benefits of those conversations for others.”

- Middlebury Director of Athletics Erin Quinn

“Bridging gaps between athletics and the greater Middlebury College community has allowed for discussion across different areas,” said Paquette, a member of the DEI committee. “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.
 
This was a great collaborative effort between campus departments. I learned that in brainstorming, the more specific and confident you can be with sharing your ideas, the more your input and expertise will be considered. The hardest part was identifying people who wanted to share their stories and engage in difficult conversations. Seeing the vulnerability in the first few episodes motivated and inspired others to get involved. If you lead, people will follow.”

 What’s next for Middlebury in the DEI discussions?

“We are now focusing our attention on our new DEI programming, M+. The five-year plan includes several initiatives, with a heavy focus on education,” Paquette noted. “With the Middlebury “M,” the "+" represents each individual person and everything that makes someone who they are outside of athletics. Collectively, M+ represents the significance of the Middlebury athletics experience, which impacts lives beyond competing as athletes.”

The program's curriculum plans will focus on developing four years of diversity, equity and inclusion education, with three primary learning groups: student-athletes, teams, and staff. Team development sessions will be interactive and serve to build solid foundation of inclusivity. Staff will participate in training that is similar to the team training, as well as workshops to build skills in facilitating difficult conversations.

“We are also working with campus partners to help develop guidance on how others can have these conversations, which is a really exciting thing to be a part of,” Paquette concluded.

---

Here is a sampling of other creative submissions by our CoSIDA members for the 2020-21 ChangeMaker Innovation Award.

Baylor University: With in-person events not being held, the traditional "Meet the Bears" meet and greet event where student-athletes from all Baylor sports visit with fans at McLane Stadium prior to the start of the athletic year could not take place. The BU athletic communications and marketing and fan engagement team turned the in-person event into a virtual social media series where little Baylor fans could submit a question to their favorite Baylor coach or student-athlete through the Greenfly app and get it answered on social media. It was a huge success and fans and stakeholders are hoping that it can continue, alongside the in-person event.

Lehigh University: With the COVID-19 pandemic shining light on medical professionals, the athletic communications staff highlighted Lehigh Athletics’ connections in the medical field (primarily alums). The feature series, Mountain Hawk Heroes, was presented by the Lehigh Valley Health Network and featured over 30 alums over the course of eight months.

Ferris State: The NCAA Division II athletic communications staff introduced a two-hour long weekly show, "Ferris State Friday's Live." Broadcast  live locally on flagship station Sunny 97.3 FM, it featured 4-6 guests per week with interviews, alumni stories, throwback clips and more. With a social media blitz, the show also enabled Ferris State Athletics to highlight its advertisers, sponsors and key donors who otherwise would not have received exposure or attention with competition paused.  

Great Lakes Valley Conference: Rolled out a “Listen, Learn, Lead, Love / Someone To Listen Series,” an initiative of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. It aimed to expand upon its popular Someone to Listen mental health awareness campaign and engage the Division II Conference student-athletes, coaches, faculty, and administrators in meaningful conversations on topics such as mental health and race relations, the stressors of international students.

Missouri Valley Conference: Introduced Mobilizing Voices for Change (#OneValley) to find ways to attack systemic racism, promote diversity and inclusion, and advance equality for everyone. A “Kids Speak” series features the voices of our younger generation -- children of league administrators and coaches - emphasizing the MVC’s strong belief that our best opportunity for lasting change rests on our youth. These were promoted during MVC’s linear and digital television packages, in 30-second PSA spots, and live read by on-air talent in nine sports.

Mountain East Conference: The Division II conference communications staff created “MEC Good News," six-week video series with each episode between 4-10 minutes. The goals were to shed light on the good news and positivity across the conference in the uncertain and challenging time and to keep student-athletes (and other stakeholders) engaged and still feel a part of the conference and sports.

Navy: With 33 varsity sports at Navy, the “Navy 90” video series was a way fans could stay informed with what was taking place and learn more about programs that aren't heavily covered as much by area media outlets. The video segments also gave fans a chance to see action from events they weren't permitted to attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Included in each video: a ticker featuring social media handles; lower thirds telling the story in written form; a timer in the upper right corner that filled up as the clock reaches 90 seconds.

Point Loma Nazarene: Created the “Cross Exam” video series focused on faculty and staff getting the opportunity to interview student-athletes. The Cross Exam series humanized the student-athletes and the faculty/staff members at the NCAA Division II school, and shined a great light on the university.

Slippery Rock University: With no competitions in the fall or winter in 2020-21, the Division II athletic communications staff created a Fall Content Calendar with special Monday-Friday features for the entire fall semester. The five days of content included  profiles of SRU athletics staff members, SRU alumnus, Zoom “Get to Know The Rock's Athletes" with personal photos, fun questions and a "rapid fire" video interview, a Throwback Thursday Historical Feature, and Friday Fun with trivia, cooking contest, “heads up“ game and more. The content generated 1.5 million impressions on Twitter, 86,000 video views for an average of 286 minutes per day and more than 228,000 views on the website from visitors in 131 different countries.

Suffolk University: This NCAA Division III school introduced the “Ram Cam,” a five-part student-athletes perspective of a practice, pre-game, and game-day. The student-athletes wore a GoPro and were also followed by a camera to show Ram Nation, the Suffolk University Athletics' community, a behind-the-scenes look of a day-in-the-life of a student-athlete. The videos were some of the most anticipated publicity for the department, and the five videos – shot, produced and edited by the athletic communicators - accumulated over 6,000 views.

University Athletic Association: The NCAA Division III conference ran 65 stories in its' “UAA Conversations About Race and Racism” series. A series of open-ended conversations, coordinated by SID Timothy Farrell along with the UAA Black History Committee, which included current and former Association student-athletes. Every UAA institution was represented by at least six stories.

---

Talk about these stories on the CoSIDA Slack Community.