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This story is part of our January 2022 CoSIDA 360 package, to view more stories,
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The SID Life
Compiled by Barb Kowal – CoSIDA Director of External Affairs & Professional Development
How would you describe your job to a 10-year old? Plus, things we're learning now, New Year's resolutions, proudest accomplishments and much more.
"The SID Life" is a series surveying CoSIDA members for their thoughts on topics and issues in the athletic communications industry, plus personal insights into not-so-serious issues, too.
Featuring:
How would you describe your job to a 10-year old?
Dowden: I get paid to watch sports and tell people what to do.
Fisher: I tell the incredible stories of elite athletes!
Mallik: I help promote our teams by maintaining our website, running social media accounts, and working with journalists and broadcasters to tell their stories. I want our fans to engage with our teams digitally, and I want new audiences to learn about what makes our teams special. I get to be involved on a lot of gamedays across different sports.
Parker: I watch sports for a living.
What’s one thing you’re learning now, and why is it important?
Dowden: How important relationships are. Both personally and professionally I think it’s so important to learn and listen from those around us. I don’t have enough fingers to count how often I’ve learned something by listening and being present that’s helped me later in life.
Fisher: I’m a part-time master’s student working on a business degree. It’s always been a dream of mine and now felt like the right time. It is important to me because you can never be too old or too busy to advance your education.
Mallik: I am in graduate school at Northwestern for data science. While I don’t use topics like machine learning or artificial intelligence every day, I approach my goals in the digital space with an analytical mindset, specifically when it comes to social media performance. I also look at advanced stats, particularly in women’s basketball with the great website Her Hoop Stats, to learn what the numbers say about our team and the teams we play against. While I don’t have the expertise of student-athletes of coaches who have played their respective sports, my desire to understand the sports as much as possible helps me do my job better, including the ability to recognize what accomplishments are worth highlighting.
Parker: I’ve been working a lot more with Photoshop recently, trying to keep up with my young and talented staff. It’s important for a lot of reasons, but I’ve avoided branching out into new areas because I’ve always had good people around me to help. Now I’m finally taking advantage of the outstanding situation I’m in and beginning to learn more about our craft.
My top one or two personal New Year’s Resolution(s) is/are ….
Dowden: Continue to improve relationships around me and be present in all interactions.
Fisher: To prioritize family time above all else. Being home during so much of the pandemic was a good reminder that my kids are only small once and I will never regret the time I spend with them.
Mallik: To continue to stay active like I did in 2021 by fitting as much tennis, soccer and cycling as I can around my schedule.
Parker: I’ve made it a priority the last few years to keep work at work as much as possible, knowing that those things that didn’t get done today can still get done tomorrow. Even though it’s tough considering how much we all have to manage in this profession, it’s something I’ll continue to reinvest myself in every year.
My top one or two professional New Year’s Resolution(s) is/are ….
Dowden: To be glass half full guy. It’s too easy to find negatives in our own work or what’s around us. I want to be positive in all interactions and projects I take on.
Fisher: To find ways to implement what I’m learning in my master’s degree into my role at work so I can improve what I do and find new, creative ways to do things.
Mallik: To continue to make coverage of sports in underserved media spaces more like the coverage of the leaders in their sport. I specifically work with women’s soccer, women’s basketball and tennis, and look for the template for how to run those accounts successfully at the highest level for American fans (NWSL/MLS, WNBA/NBA, ATP/WTA). Unfortunately, the institutional knowledge and resources for those sports are often not there and I want to challenge myself to make the type of content I would enjoy following as a fan.
Parker: My main goals involve continuing to grow and develop what we are doing in sports information. I’m in a unique situation at Trinity for many reasons, and I want to use the resources and flexibility we have in order to be better at all the things we do.
During the holiday season, I most looked forward to this food/snack/special item:
Dowden: I like BBQ all year round, but my guilty pleasure during the holidays are the sweet treats.
Fisher: Turkey!
Mallik: Any cheese plate or appetizers at a holiday party. Sign me up.
Parker: I have grown fond of the Christmas Day menu over 20 years with my in-laws: eggs benedict with mimosas for breakfast and prime rib as the main course for dinner. And because I love my wife and enjoy being married to her, I can’t forget to mention her chorizo/tamale dressing that is always a favorite!
Proudest professional accomplishment to date
Dowden: Helping write and present the bid to bring the NAIA Softball World Series to Springfield, Missouri.
Fisher: Worked really closely with our football head coach to plan an all-out official visit for the top recruits on their board. It was an incredible experience and we landed four of the five.
Mallik: Either hosting a NCAA Softball Regional as a senior in college or celebrating our women’s basketball team’s first Big Ten Championship in 30 years at home in my first season. When you’re young, you don’t realize how lucky you are to be a part of postseasons and titles, but even a few years later, I know those memories will stick with me the rest of my life.
Parker: I don’t really have much of an ego about the things I do professionally, so it’s hard to point at anything I’ve done myself. I will say that seeing three of our teams win national championships in person – the most recent being baseball in 2016 – was amazing, and I’m so proud of those student-athletes and what they were able to accomplish.
Book/podcast/blog or combo of these that I would suggest to my fellow SID colleagues…
Dowden: The Leadership Minute podcast with Kevin DeShazo.
Fisher: Crossroads: My Story of Tragedy and Resilience as a Humboldt Bronco
This book was written by one of our athletes, Kaleb Dahlgren. He has overcome so much in his life and remains one of the most positive people you’ll ever meet.
Mallik: For any fans of The Martian (movie or book), the author Andy Weir’s latest novel is called Project Hail Mary – it’s another story of survival in space with accurate science, and it has a delightful twist. I couldn’t put it down.
Parker: I’ve never really gotten into podcasts or blogs, but I’ve always loved to read. John Grisham has been one of my favorite authors for years, and I find myself enjoying books that are part of a series more and more. Authors like Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, or Tom Clancy. Unfortunately, I like to binge-read and finish books once I get started, so it’s tough to find time to keep up with my reading these days.
Would you rather be the CEO of a company or AD/Commissioner - or another executive? If another executive, which one?
Dowden: CEO of a company. I watch too much TV and can always imagine myself as the CEO of TV shows I watch.
Fisher: I’d love to be the head of a non-profit organization dedicated to providing sport and recreation opportunities to children.
Mallik: I’d rather be an AD. It would be fun to be one of the first Athletic Directors to build an analytics department that elevated all of their sports to find competitive advantages on the margins through data. The analytics revolution has already swept through nearly every professional sport. Investments in sports performance through analytics would pay dividends in competitive results.
Parker: I would rather be the AD/Commissioner. I’ve been really lucky to work in sports all these years and I can’t imagine the corporate life, AKA a “real job.”
Would you rather be the oldest person in the office or the youngest?
Dowden: Oldest. All my grey hair equals wisdom.
Fisher: The youngest, because there would be so much to learn from everyone else around you.
Mallik: I am the youngest person full-time in my office … I don’t know any better so I’d probably go with that.
Parker: I’ve always been the oldest within sports information (when I’ve had help), but I was among the youngest in our athletics and our public relations departments when I started. I guess I would say the oldest because then people assume you know what you’re doing.
Would you rather give up your GPS or Netflix?
Dowden: GPS (I’m a really enjoy traveling and finding my way on my own).
Fisher: Definitely Netflix. Living in a city with a ton of traffic, my GPS is crucial to finding the fastest way to get around!
Mallik: I’d give up my GPS. While I’m young, I’m old enough to remember printing out Mapquest directions to get to soccer tournaments as a kid. I also live in Chicago, and while the streets aren’t numbered like New York streets, it’s still a grid system. I’d be alright!
Parker: I could cheat and say Netflix because there are so many other streaming platforms available, but I don’t want to ruin this last question by cheating … So I’ll say Netflix for the real reasons: I’ve always been bad with directions and I hate traffic. If I actually know how to get somewhere (rare), I still use my GPS so I know where the bad traffic areas are.