Marisa Lombardo serves as Director of Sports Information & Operations at Alvernia University, a member of NCAA Division III’s Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC). She joined her alma mater, a private Franciscan Roman Catholic university in Reading, Pennsylvania, as an assistant sports information director in July 2018.
Lombardo earned her Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and bachelor of arts degree in communication in May 2017 at Alvernia before earning her Masters in business administration at the school in August 2018.
Lombardo was a work-study captain for the sports information office in her four years as an undergraduate, and then served as a graduate assistant in athletics while pursuing her Masters degree.
Marisa Lombardo Working with the Alvernia table crew during a men’s basketball game (second from right).
You were a work-study captain for sports information at Alvernia, served as a GA, joined as an assistant director of sports information in 2018, and now are the Director of Sports Information & Operations for your alma mater. How much have you enjoyed the continuity and familiarity with the athletics program at Alvernia?
ML: I’m incredibly grateful that I have been able to start my professional career at my alma mater and then continue to grow here as well. I do very much enjoy the continuity and familiarity of being at the place where I grew up. Not only did I go to Alvernia as an undergrad and get my Master’s here, but I also went to high school right down the road at Governor Mifflin. So I’m very familiar with the area!
And while I do enjoy the familiarity of being at Alvernia, it is such a different place then when I started here. We have grown so much both in athletics and as a university since I first started as an undergrad back in 2013. There are nearly a dozen sports that we have added, or are adding next year, that were not an offering for us when I first started. With that comes new additions to our staff and a whole new set of student-athletes.
What’s one of your favorite overall moments of serving in athletics?
ML: One of the great things about working in college athletics is that we get to have the opportunity to get to know an entire new group of students every single year, and I’ve been lucky enough to get to see several of those classes through to their graduations. Getting to know the student-athletes and watch them grow from their first year through graduation is one of my favorite things about this job, so I really like that I have been able to see quite a few classes through. I think this is officially my first year as well where I was never a student with any of our current student-athletes, so that does make me feel kind of old now!
Marisa Lombardo with her dad, Ed, after the high school football team he helps coach won their first district championship in program history.
What are some other highlights working with Alvernia Athletics?
ML: By far, it’s the student-athletes! I know it’s cliché to say, but I really believe that we have the best student-athletes out there. Getting to highlight them, know them and ultimately build relationships with them has been the best part of my career so far. They truly make the long days and weeks worth it.
Despite what they think, at 26 I’m not much older than them, and I learn as much from them as I hope they are learning from me. I love working with them and helping them navigate such a wild time of their lives – a time I’m still trying to navigate myself. I love watching them win and succeed both on and off the field.
Having them pop in to say hello or hang out really makes my day. Back in the fall I was on the road covering men’s soccer playoffs and was going from there right to field hockey playoffs. It’s Pennsylvania in November, so it was pretty cold. I was talking to some women’s soccer players on the other side of the fence who were there to support the men’s team and mentioned I was cold and thought I was going to freeze at the field hockey game later that night. A few minutes later I stuck my hands in my pockets and one of them had snuck handwarmers in there when I wasn’t paying attention. It’s having kids like that that really make Alvernia a special place.
I also love how every single day is different for me. Having over 30 sports means that there is always something new to be done, or a task to do that I don’t get to do often. Growing up, I knew I didn’t want the 9-5 job with the same thing to do day in and day out, and I certainly don’t have that with this job.
When you got promoted to Director of Sports Information & Operations, how different was your role? What new tasks did you take on?
ML: The process of me being promoted started back in January of 2020 when our SID at the time, Associate AD Jon King, transitioned to a different role at the University. As everyone knows, that was a weird time in college athletics as we were hovering around the point of not knowing if we were going to have sports or not, to ultimately deciding we were going to do all of them at once in one semester! So, it was a lot of responsibility to navigate right off the bat.
Thankfully Jon always had me get involved with a bunch of different things. So, while it was certainly overwhelming, I felt that I had been prepared well to do it. There’s always going to be a learning curve, but I feel like being thrown right into that semester ended up being really beneficial in the long run.
Marisa Lombardo (left) scoring a basketball game with Alvernia Women’s Lacrosse Head Coach Megan Corrigan (right).
As the new director of athletic communications, tell us some of the things you’ve done differently now that you are in the leadership role.
ML: After I was officially named the Director of Sports Information and Operations in June, I knew there were a few new things I wanted to try that I was excited to be able to make happen. Like I said before, profiling and highlighting student-athletes is my favorite thing to do – and I wanted to take that to a higher level. We started doing mic’d-up practices and senior profiles, as well as a few other things we have planned for the future, and that has been so much fun to do.
As for what’s different and new tasks, I think the higher level of managing people is the biggest adjustment for me – both in me managing my staff, as well as working with coaches and staff more than I did before. My office is young, and I think we are all just trying to figure this out together! We also have about 25 students on our staff, so managing them and getting to know them is always a fun part of the job. I think I have a responsibility to help shape them into better people by the time they graduate, whether they are entering a career in college athletics or not. So, I try to have fun with them while also preparing them for life and whatever career path they take.
With coaches, Jon was always their main point of contact, so now I get to work with them on a closer level and see what it is that they would like or what it is we can try and change up.
In your LinkedIn profile, you mention public speaking as one of your skills; how often do you put those skills to the test?
ML: I took a public speaking class as a requirement for my communications degree, so I threw that on LinkedIn once I passed the course! I’m not a huge fan of public speaking, so, luckily, I don’t have to do it often. Most frequently I will do the public address duties at our home games if we are short on student-workers or do not have a professional come in to do it. I occasionally go and talk to a communications class, which is more fun for me than nerve-wracking. I have successfully managed getting out of speaking at events thus far, which is something I am grateful for!
The Lombardo family enjoying time in Corolla, NC. L to R: With Marissa, her father (Ed), mother (Joanne) in middle, brother in-law (Ben) and sister (Alexis) on right.
You attended the NCAA Emerging Leaders Seminar in 2018. What was that experience like? Have you attended similar events before or after?
ML: That was an amazing experience and one that I will never forget. I was so surprised when I got accepted! It was so cool to be with a group of individuals who all have the same interests as you, and are working towards similar goals. We all had such different backgrounds and paths to how we got to where we are, so it was a very neat experience to get to hear how different places do things. I remember I roomed with a Division I sprinter from the University of Alabama who was also working in student-athlete development. We enjoyed sharing experiences since we were coming from such different sides of the spectrum in college athletics.
My absolute favorite part was hearing Meg Stevens (Director of Athletics at Averett) during a keynote address. She provided such a shift in my mindset and gave an athletic department culture insight that I’ll never forget. It is something that I try and echo in everything that I do.
I unfortunately haven’t had an opportunity to attend anything similar since then, but I would love to! Things are so different since COVID, but I would love to be able to attend events like that in the future!
If any, what challenges have you faced as a female in athletic communications?
ML: I think the sports information world, and athletics as a whole, has come a long way since I was first introduced to the profession back in 2013. But, I think it still does have a long way to go. The fact is that there just aren’t very many women in this profession (yet!), so I think it does take some coaches and student-athletes aback when you introduce yourself as the SID. The amount of times I am mistaken for an athletic trainer or assistant coach is staggering to me – nothing against either of them either – but it happens at least once a week.
I think there is just sometimes this assumption that this isn’t a job that women do. And with that assumption, at least for me, comes a second-guessing of the work I’m doing – am I doing a good enough job, am I sure on all of the rules, what can I be doing better. In the end though, I just try to put my head down and try to be the hardest worker in the room. I hope that, ultimately, my work ethic and the job I am doing will speak for itself.
And not to say that it’s all doom and gloom out there! I have met and worked with some incredible and supportive people, especially within my conference. When I first got promoted, I received so many messages of support from my colleagues across the MAC and I was so grateful. I even received one from our Associate Commissioner at the time that acknowledged I was the only female SID in the conference and that the MAC was there to support me in any way they could. I thought that was really cool, and I try to pass that support along to other women I meet along the way.
Outside of your profession, what are some of your favorite things to do in your free time?
ML: From August through June I don’t get much down time, so I really savor time with family – and with my very cute Australian Shepherd, Phoenix – when I get a night off here and there. If I’m not working on a Sunday, I really enjoy watching football with my dad. He’s been a football coach my whole life and is the reason I wanted to pursue a career in athletics.
During COVID work at home, I also fell in love with working out, and I really look forward to that time every day where I can try and disconnect from work.
The 90 minutes I take first thing every morning to get a workout in is sacred time to me. It’s the one time of day where I really try to ignore my phone and email just for a bit. I truly believe it’s what keeps me sane when the rest of my day can be so crazy.
While photography is a big part of what I do at work, I also like taking photos outside of work. My specialties are dogs (mainly mine) and sunsets! I also really enjoy golfing! I am not great at it at all, but I love taking the time to walk a course to play, and just slowing down and enjoying the moment.
If there was one place you could travel to right now, where would it be?
ML: Great question! My family has a home in the (North Carolina) Outer Banks, and I love getting there whenever possible. I’m also lucky to get to work from there a lot during the summer. I don’t really think about going anywhere else, but I think I would enjoy seeing more of the country – especially places like the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Northwest. Those places would be so cool to explore and photograph, and I’d love to get to do that one day.
Do you have any advice for young female professionals beginning their careers in sports information?
ML: Absolutely – even though this is all advice I’m still trying to follow myself!
- First of all, set boundaries. If you are taking two hours to be with family or do something for yourself, put your phone down. Only address it if it’s truly an emergency. Otherwise, it can wait.
- Understand that “no” is a complete sentence. If you can’t do something, then others will need to be okay with your answer, there’s no need to always explain yourself.
- Find your people within your department to really connect with. We spend way too much time together to not have friends to lean on at work.
- Make plans and set goals for yourself, but every now and then take a moment to drink this experience in. This is such a unique job, and I don’t think we take enough time to appreciate that.
- Lastly, like I said earlier, this industry has come a long way, but it still is going to be an uphill battle. Call on your mentors and colleagues for help and advice, especially the other females in this industry. Lift each other up – a flame loses nothing by lighting another fire.