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CoSIDA Goodwill & Wellness Committee
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Communicators Outside the Lines Feature Series
This story is part of our June 2022 CoSIDA 360 package, to view more stories,
click here.
This is the next profile in a series entitled
Communicators Outside the Lines: Better Yourself, Better Your Community produced by the CoSIDA Goodwill & Wellness Committee. Read past profiles at
CoSIDA.com/CommunicatorsOTL.
WE NEED YOUR IDEAS!
If you have any ideas for this series, which will revolve around CoSIDA member volunteerism and health and wellness, please contact Goodwill and Wellness Committee chair
Jeremy Rosenthal, Indiana University Assistant Director of Strategic Communications, at
jr359@indiana.edu.
Brian Clinard: Changing with the seasons
Spalding University, Assistant Athletic Director, Communications
by Brian Lovellette – St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Assistant Commissioner / Goodwill & Wellness Committee member
Sports communication professionals count down their year by what season it is. Our years start in the fall and culminate with a flourish of activity in the spring with certain benchmarks along the way to let us know how the year is progressing. Spalding University Assistant Athletic Director for Communications
Brian Clinard can tick off his professional and personal life in a similar fashion. From college graduate to respected administrator, from work focused to family man; Brian Clinard takes us on his journey of growth to where he is today.
College Graduate to Respected Administrator
A lifelong resident of Louisville, Kentucky Brian Clinard recently completed a decade working in Louisville's Spalding University's athletic department. After graduating from the University of Louisville, Clinard joined Spalding in 2012 as its sports information director. In the last 10 years Clinard has spearheaded the re-branding of the Spalding athletic department, developed a partnership with Stretch Internet to provide free streaming and live stats for athletic events, and established an internship mentoring program.
“When I came to Spalding it was to mainly be the SID. We had a WordPress website, no social media, no graphics integration, no live stream, or broadcast, not even a roster or schedule format," Clinard noted. "So, my focus was primarily on sports information at that time. That has shifted over the years. I took over game day operations two years in and am now part of coaching and staffing searches."
One of the other areas that Clinard heads up is Spalding University branding.
“I remember coming back from CoSIDA one summer after hearing Mark Majewski and Aaron DeWalt talk about importance of branding. That was when it hit me that we have 13 variations of our athletic logo. So, I took on the duty of working with our marketing department on branding and logo usage, which I now fully oversee.”
Clinard helped roll out a new logo, complete with a logo identity guidebook that includes identifying color and logo usage. His duties also include overseeing logo usage and placement on athletic uniforms and securing the best apparel and equipment deals for the athletic department.
“I am now involved in a lot more decision-making and discussions for the athletic department and its direction.”
During the 2020-21 academic year, much of his discussions included talk around COVID. Clinard was given the added duty of building the athletics department COVID-19 return to play plan.
“That was really a trying time. I leaned heavily on our local health department and campus health and safety for much of the COVID information. It involved me reaching out to various local schools and administrators to build our return to play policy, as well as working with our AT staff and University COVID taskforce to figure out how we were going to logistically test our student-athletes and staff," Clinard stated. "The ability to get back and play was so important to our students, the school, and the conference; we had to figure something out. I wasn’t interested in that aspect of health but I knew that if I didn’t do this and we don’t come up with a plan, nothing good is going to happen.”
As his job titles and duties grew over the last decade, Clinard also found his personal life changing and hitting milestones as well. Now in his early 30’s Clinard took on more of a focus on his health and in early 2020, when the world was changing, so did his life in a very personal way.
Cross-Over Season
It is the yearly milestone that communication professionals have come to dread: cross-over season. While the world was going through a pandemic, Clinard was about to become a father. How does one handle when a job that typically focuses on promotion of athletics is on pause and now involves working with health officials, a world that is in the midst of a pandemic, a newborn baby, and focusing on their own health?
“My daughter was born February 2021 and we were part of one of the few conferences in the country that held a championship for every conference sponsored sport (17 championships) in just a three month span that spring. Combine that with being one of the COVID contacts for our athletic department and that period of time was a blur,”
Clinard noted.
He spent his days waking up, working out, taking care of his newborn daughter, running COVID testing, figuring out how to logistically cover the sporting events and programs; rinse and repeat.
“I had to prioritize what we did. It used to be a graphic for everything and write-ups for every event. But my focus became centered on having events and playing the games. Everything else was secondary. We focused on positives stories or big games for our teams. Using the analytics, I knew that it wasn’t going to affect us that much. People want to read the good news, that was where my focus would be.”
How did Clinard keep his mind straight? Because he kept his health straight. At the same time as when the world was shutting down and his personal life was changing, Clinard looked inward and focused on his own health. Despite the added job duties, ones he never thought he would assume, and change at home Clinard knew that if he didn’t take care of himself, he wouldn’t be able to take care of anything else, at work or at home.
Off and Running
Climbing up the work ladder and now with a baby on the way, Clinard’s life was off and running, quite literally.
“I have always tried to stay fairly active, running a few miles here and there but nothing more than two miles," he said. "But when the pandemic hit you couldn’t really go anywhere because the gyms were closed. I was actually in Florida with our baseball team when things shut down. I had a friend down in the area to watch spring training and since there was nothing to do, I headed over to join him. He was an avid runner and we would just go running on the beach and that sort of put the idea in my head.”
What was the idea? It wasn’t just to run every day; it wasn’t even just to run a marathon. Clinard decided to go big. He signed up for an Ultra Marathon, a 50-mile trail race, with just six months to train.
“At the beginning I kept trying to add a little distance to each run and then one day I just ran 10 miles and thought that wasn’t so bad. So, I started focusing on running a marathon. And then I came across a book called ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ by David Goggins. He went from 300 pounds to a Navy Seal. So, I actually remember thinking this marathon thing is going to be too easy. So, I decided to sign up for an Ultra Marathon, 50-miles.”
In June 2020, just months after starting his running journey, Clinard signed up to run the Falls 100, 50-miler; an Ultra Trail Race in Kentucky. He joined a local running club (Louisville Trail Nuts) and started focusing more on his diet and body to prepare him for his new challenge. And despite all the preparation and planning Clinard says one of the most important things to do is to listen to your body.
“I was going to a massage therapist to stay loose and changing my diet and adding yoga to keep me healthy," Clinard said. "I started losing so much weight that I had to add food because I was burning so many calories and wasn’t getting enough nutrients. It was important for me to reduce eating things that increase inflammation.”
As the race neared Clinard knew he had one thing to keep pushing him, his baby daughter.
“I knew it was a difficult challenge that I signed up for and that I could very well be one of those guys that half-way through the race has to get pulled off the course. But I had my daughter’s ultrasound picture in my pocket while running, because one thing I want to pass on is the belief that you can do anything. Just set your mind to it. And that helped me with the mental side on the training runs, when I was 24 miles in and legs were jelly. Just knowing I could be an example for her, it definitely helped drive me.”
Wrapping It Up
The last decade has been one of growth for Clinard, both professionally and personally. From working his way to a valuable and respected administrator in the athletic department to becoming a father to improving his health and learning how to blend every aspect of his life together.
His advice? “When it comes to making a healthy lifestyle change, just get started. Take that first step. I went to the doctor because my knees and back were hurting. The doctor called me out, asked me how much I weighed, and she said come back when you lose some weight. So, I started walking and that led to me starting to lose weight and that allowed me to run.”
And run he did, Clinard finished his 50-mile trail race and despite raising his daughter and work life getting back to normal he still finds time to get out for runs. In fact, he is planning on participating in more Ultra Marathon races but remains grounded in reality.
“Don’t be scared of having that big goal. We all fail at times, whether it is big failures or little failures. It happens, life happens. If I don’t get in a run today, I will get it tomorrow. You can’t beat yourself up about it.”
Outside of taking care of his personal health and raising his daughter Clinard has some advice for communication professionals when it comes to their professional growth.
“It can be a slippery slope to taking on more work," Clinard noted. "It must fit in with what you want to do long-term and align with your goals. Taking on added responsibilities lets you learn in a hands-on way. Don’t just say yes to yes. If you say yes to everything you are going to get burnt out. And as we have seen this is an industry where the work can pile on and keep piling on to where you are 60-80 hours a week. And that is not sustainable.”
One of the keys to long-term success is having a clear vision with your work.
“I would ask yourself does this work fit in with what you want to do long term and how important is this to the overall health of the department and direction of the department," Clinard concluded. "Make sure it has value to the department and student-athletes and you aren’t doing something just to do something. It is also important to recognize and establish what your aspirations are. You must weight out the pros and cons of added job duties, both professionally and personally.
“I was willing to sacrifice my time to learn additional skills because it not only helped my personal development but because it was a need at our school. I probably wouldn’t accept the same job duties now while raising a kid. It must meet both your personal and professional needs.”
Working in athletics we understand the importance of a team and how they help us get through the year, or seasons. That is true in our personal lives as well. From being inspired by a child or having a partner push you, like Emily has done for Brian; leading his race pit crew at 6 months pregnant and swapping out his clothes and socks during the race, it is the support from others that helps us get through our year.
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