• 2016 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release
• Special Awards feature story schedule
by Steve Kirschner, North Carolina Senior Associate Athletics Director for Communications
It was the General. It was a Football Friday afternoon in 1992 and the booming, bombastic voice of Hall of Fame Indiana Basketball Coach Robert Montgomery Knight echoed through the Carolina Sports Information Office.
“A Cubs fan! And a Purdue grad! How the hell did Dean Smith let a Cubs fans who went to Purdue work for the Tar Heels?”
Those of us who were half hiding, 100 percent laughing weren’t sure what was more unbelievable. That Bob Knight
Clockwise, top, L to R: Lohse in his trademark shorts in 2014 outside his office in Koury Natatorium/Smith Center;
at Foxboro Stadium during the 1985 CoSIDA Convention in Boston (lower right, front row); January 2015 photo
with one of his best friends, best friends, Roger Mathena; with UNC swimmers from the Classes of 2011 & 2012
at the 2013 Carolina Swimming Reunion banquet.
was standing in Dave Lohse’s office picking on two of the four institutions Dave cherished the most (Carolina and the Democratic Party also making the cut) or that Smith and his top lieutenant, Bill Guthridge, had orchestrated pranking him.
You have to understand, when I first met Dave in 1988 it took me about three minutes to learn that he wasn’t a fan of Notre Dame football, the Republican party, Indiana basketball (in particular the Hoosiers’ head coach) and Duke University. Although I’ve never been sure in what order.
That Coach Smith would take the time to have Knight torture Dave in person says a lot about Dave’s standing in Smith’s eyes. Dave was a respected member of the Tar Heel family, one whom even Dean Smith enjoyed throwing a good-natured barb his way.
For 39 years, Dave has coordinated public relations at Carolina, at one time or another working with nearly every one of the Tar Heels’ 28 varsity programs. When he came to Chapel Hill in 1977, he was one of three people on staff, so it was all hands on deck for every football and basketball game and he oversaw most of the 26 “non-revenue” sports as well.
This was pre-fax machine, Internet, email, desktop publishing, podcasts, Twitter, etc. ... Public relations was done primarily by meeting and talking to people, forging relationships with coaches, student-athletes and the media, and there is arguably no one better in our industry at forging relationships than David Clark Lohse.
And, due to all these reasons, there is no better athletic communications professional to earn the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Achievement Award (for the university division). Dave is the second university division SID to receive this award, presented to a 10-year plus veteran assistant or associate director who has made outstanding contributions to college communications and who has provided exceptional service and dedication to their institution.
In these parts he’s known as the Senator – in some measure because of his encyclopedic memory, his openly and vocal support of liberal politics, and his skill in charming people of all ages. (It also didn’t hurt that he would win bar bets by naming all 100 U.S. senators in under three minutes, a daring race of trivial pursuit that has to be witnessed to be believed).
Dave has spent the last four decades of his most interesting life in Chapel Hill working with some of the most successful college athletes and coaches in NCAA history. Eleven-time national champion swimmer Sue Walsh, countless women’s soccer national players of the year, national champions and U.S. National Team stars, and legendary coaches such as soccer’s Anson Dorrance, swimming’s Frank Comfort, and lacrosse’s Willie Scroggs, are just a fraction of the thousands of people Dave has helped to publicize. They are just a fraction of the Tar Heels on whose lives Dave has made a lasting impact. It’s an impact that stays with them long after their collegiate careers have come and gone.
“Olympic sport student-athletes aren’t generally in the spotlight, not because they don’t deserve to be recognized, but more often because they don’t have an enthusiastic and passionate advocate who brings their accomplishments to the attention of the media,” says Walsh, one of the most decorated NCAA swimmers in history and a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team.
“Because of Dave’s persistence and determination, I became a first-team Academic All-America and was inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame. I remember Dave accumulating a huge pile of facts and figures to plead my case with the selection committee. His hard work, I believe, is what convinced those involved that I was worthy. It was not lost on me that Dave was most certainly behind the scenes advocating on my behalf. There was no recognition to be earned by Dave for doing so, but he felt compelled to promote the successes of those of us who simply loved being Tar Heels and who were giving it all they had to bring the University the attention it certainly deserved.”
Comfort was Carolina’s men’s and women’s swimming coach for 30 years, winning 26 ACC titles. He also ate dinner with Dave most every school night for 20 years when UNC had a training table. As a political opposite of Dave, their table conversations were engaging, antagonizing and highly entertaining.
“What makes Lohse special is his intense loyalty to each coach he works with and his constant effort to get to know all the athletes in any sport he covers,” says Comfort. “Anyone he works with knows that he cares deeply for them and their successes. He’s been able to adapt to the many changes in his profession over the decades. His sense of humor, the level of detail in anything he writes, and his uncanny ability to remember virtually all the details of events that happened years ago make him a legendary figure in sports information.”
There are many of us in the sports information/athletic communications world that can recite facts, know what an unearned run is and can deftly manipulate our way through an InDesign file. What makes Dave unique is his remarkable ability to get to know and connect on a personal level with the hundreds of students that he works with every year and maintain those friendships for decades. It is indisputable that Dave knows more parents and even grandparents than any SID I have ever met.
“What I love about Dave is he has a brain and he can write,” says 22-time national champion soccer coach Anson Dorrance. “But the best part – he loves us unconditionally!”