College Sports Information Directors of America

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• 2022 Special Awards Announcements and Features
• #CoSIDA22 Virtual Convention Home
• Past Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

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Dave Hirsch – Pac-12 Conference, Vice President, Communications (Retired)
Hirsch currently serves as the Las Vegas Bowl Senior Manager, Events/Associate Executive Director

CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award

by Tim Tessalone – University of Southern California, Consultant and Sports Information Director (retired)/CoSIDA Special Awards Committee

In the case of David Hirsch, what happens in Vegas at this summer’s CoSIDA Convention literally will stay in Vegas.
 
Once Hirsch receives his 2022 CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award, he’ll simply jump in his car with his award and drive a few miles to his nearby Henderson home.
 
After 32 years at Arizona and the Pac-12 Conference in the Bay Area, Hirsch left the sports information profession in the fall of 2020. He now serves as Senior Manager, Events and Associate Executive Director for the Las Vegas Bowl, assisting executive director John Saccenti in the coordination of the rapidly-growing postseason football game between teams from the Pac-12 and either the Big Ten or SEC.
 
The CoSIDA awards ceremony will be a familiar homecoming for Hirsch. When he steps on stage to receive his award, he’ll be flanked by six retired Pac-12 SIDs who also will be accepting Lifetime Achievement Awards: UCLA’s Marc Dellins and Bill Bennett, Arizona’s Tom Duddleston, Oregon’s Dave Williford, Oregon State’s Steve Fenk and USC’s Tim Tessalone. During their long and illustrious tenures, Hirsch dutifully served as their league PR director.
 
Hirsch spent 25 years (1995-2020) with the “Conference of Champions,” first as the Pac-12’s Director of Public Relations handling men’s basketball and cross country/track and field (he was also their sport administrator) while assisting with the league’s other sports. In 2010 when the Pac-10 became the Pac-12 Conference, he was promoted to Vice President, Communications upon the retirement of his mentor, Jim Muldoon. At the time, Hirsch was the only Power 5 conference communications director in charge of both football and men’s basketball.
 
 
In addition to his daily duties, Hirsch served as media coordinator for both the Pac-12 Football Championship Game and the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament. He was Tournament Director for the 2011 hoops tourney and also doubled as assistant media coordinator for the Rose Bowl Game, at one point working alongside 2022 CoSIDA Hall of Fame inductee Gina Lehe.
 
When Hirsch moved on from the Pac-12, Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com called him “the ultimate media communications professional,” while the Bay Area News Group’s Jon Wilner wrote that Hirsch “served the schools well for 25 years and will be missed.”
 
Were it not for Hirsch’s inability to consistently hit the curve ball, the one-time Arizona shortstop might have been someone that other Wildcat SIDs would be promoting.
 
“When I got cut from the baseball team after my sophomore year, I went in to see the head coach (Jerry Kindall) and told him I had a .330 average,” Hirsch said. “Coach Kindall reminded me that that was my fielding average, not my batting average!  So I told him I wanted to stay involved in college athletics and he helped me get an SID internship, working under two legends - Butch Henry and Tom Duddleston.”
 
That morphed into a fulltime job at his alma mater. For seven years (1988-95) as coordinator of information services, he handled media relations for the Wildcats’ nationally-ranked men’s basketball, baseball and women’s volleyball teams and their Hall of Fame coaches (hello, Lute Olson, Jerry Kindall and Rosie Wegrich).
 
“I always felt our job in communications was to help others succeed,” he said. “It’s the stuff you don’t see, the little things, that help make a difference with others and would make me feel good about doing the job.”
 
Hirsch recalled the time he spent prepping Damon Stoudamire how to handle interviews when the basketball star first arrived at Arizona.
 
“We did a mock interview and videotaped it, then had Damon critique himself,” said Hirsch.“Damon noticed how he said ‘you know’ almost every other word, and he promised to work on that. Well, after his first game, he had to do the post-game interview and I counted how many ‘you knows’ he said. Just one! So it made me feel good that he took our media training to heart.”
 
As memorable as it was publicizing the exploits of those superb Wildcat teams and student-athletes, Hirsch also cherished his twice-a-week summer baseball games in the Tucson City League, where his teammates included UA staffers like late, great Wildcats football coach/pitcher/catcher/second baseman Dick Tomey (“he played all nine positions one game,” Hirsch remembers) and local sportswriters.
 
“I was fortunate to play for Kindall, work for Lute and play with Tomey,” Hirsch noted.
 
Hirsch also has a unique perspective of working for both a school, conference and a bowl.
 
“When I left Arizona and went to the conference office, I missed being around the student-athletes,” Hirsch said. “And it felt like I had aged significantly. On a college campus, it feels like you never age because you’re around 18-to-22-year-olds.
 
“Working at a conference, you get to be around the student-athletes at the championships and you realize their love of their sport. It’s infectious. It makes you want to do your job at the highest level.
 
Hirsch reflected on his communications background and how that serves him well in his current role at the Las Vegas Bowl.
 
“Now in my position with the Las Vegas Bowl, that feeling from my PR days carries over. You want to create an environment and an experience for the student-athletes and the fans where they feel special and that they’ll remember.
 
“I certainly miss the PR profession. But I’m still in the sports business, I just see more of the business side of it now. People sometimes still look to me like I’m the PR guy and I have to tell them I’m not that guy anymore.”
 
At the June CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Awards recognition, he’ll be “that guy” once again.