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This feature is one of the many profiles we are doing to showcase our diverse CoSIDA membership during 2017 CoSIDA Membership Recognition Week. To see all the feature stories,
please click HERE.
Sarah Kirkpatrick: American International College
Coordinator of Athletic Communications
by Monyae Williamson, Jacksonville University Director of Media Relations
CoSIDA Recognition Week Committee member
The chaotic schedule of an athletic communications director doesn’t allow much free time for Sarah Kirkpatrick to flex her pen, but writing will always be her first love.
The 23-year-old graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and was heavily involved with the school’s independent student newspaper as its editor-in-chief and sports editor.
Her blossoming career has featured a two-year stint as the BU men’s hockey beat writer as well as time spent writing and producing sports content for seattlepi.com and
The Boston Globe.
Sarah’s first full-time SID position is at American international College, where she’s been serving as its Coordinator of Athletic Communications since August of 2016. She is the primary contact for ice hockey, men’s soccer, tennis, women’s lacrosse, cross country and track and field.
What excites you about this field, and made you want to get involved?
I was a journalism major at Boston University. My entire background and initial interest area came in the form of writing. Obviously, that’s still a huge part of my job now — both the technical and grammatical aspects, and the more abstract aspects of storytelling and perpetual curiosity — and is what initially attracted me to the field of sports information. But what I think caused me to look outside journalism and more toward sports information was that I wanted to work more closely with student-athletes and advocate on their behalf.
Probably what excites me most and keeps me fueled in my athletic communications career is the opportunity to help our student-athletes represent themselves. Any chance I get to feature them — even in a small way, like on a graphic, in a quick video or Instagram story, a quote in a story — is something I love.
American International College lives up to its name, and has a very large international student population. We have student-athletes from nearly 20 different nations. I work with our men’s soccer team, which has athletes from eight different countries, and our men’s ice hockey team, which also has players from eight different countries. There are people all over the world who want to know the latest about AIC sports, and how their family members are doing. I love that it’s my job to help keep their families updated, and also that it’s my job to make our student-athletes’ experience special in some small way, and through the way I know best — telling their stories and documenting their journey.
Kirkpatrick working during an AIC men’s basketball game.
You have a degree in journalism with a focus in gender studies. What attracted you to pursue a degree in that area?
Writing has always been one of my strongest passions — specifically in the form of nonfiction storytelling. I love having conversations with people and finding out more about their background, then being able to communicate that in story form. As for gender studies — I’ve always been a feminist and have always cared about equality, so I wanted to add more academic and historical context to that passion.
Has your concentration in gender studies sparked any interesting pieces?
I honestly haven’t had as much time as I’d like to work on any extended pieces — but what I will say is that my background in gender studies has made me much more well-rounded as a person. While it hasn’t necessarily led to tangible projects or pieces, I do think it’s made me more aware of equal gender representation and how sexism can arise in even its most subtle forms — especially internalized sexism.
The biggest thing my background in gender studies has made me aware of is how I treat other women in the profession. Though women have made quite a bit of progress as far as representation in this field, we’re still definitely the minority. Because of that, we need to go out of our way to work with each other and promote each other’s work.
I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to form strong relationships with other women in the profession — my two conferences, the Northeast-10 and Atlantic Hockey, have a number of women working in communications departments. It’s helpful and empowering to be in environments that encourage and embrace diversity.
Tell me a little about a story or piece that was your favorite to write or produce?
Like I said, I haven’t had much time to do as much writing as I’d like, but I am very happy with the
men’s soccer season preview I wrote prior to the 2017 season. We decided to do our season previews on Adobe Spark this year — it’s super user-friendly, and looks super cool on top of that between the combination of text, photo and video. I think the end result of these previews was spectacular.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I’m honestly a pretty boring person outside of work … I obviously spend a lot of time working, so the free moments I do get are very much spent relaxing. I like to joke that my favorite hobby is sleeping, but I do enjoy cooking and baking. I love to travel in a non-work capacity when I get the chance to do so. I enjoy shopping and different home decorating projects.
One thing I’m big on is that I also don’t watch many sports when I’m not working. I keep up with BU hockey and my favorite pro team — the Seattle Mariners — but I’d rather turn on Parks and Recreation on Netflix or some Bravo or TLC reality show before turning on a random game in the background when I get home. I spend so much time watching sports for my job that it’s nice to have some separation from that when I’m home.
What advice would you give to someone looking to break into this field?
• Definitely be prepared to do anything — and give yourself as much experience doing as many different things as possible. I was fortunate that BU had a very well-rounded approach to its journalism education, so I gained a lot of experience with video, photography, social media and design in addition to writing in college. But that still didn’t prepare me for a lot of the other aspects of this profession — specifically the stats. The sooner you can hop on StatCrew and learn the basics of that, the better. Granted I was sort of late to the game on deciding I wanted to be an SID — I had zero experience in the field before I was hired at AIC — I wish I’d taken some time during college to focus a bit more on the statistical, nitty-gritty aspects.
• Be yourself — the best version of yourself. Don’t try to be anybody you’re not. People will remember you for your personality, your creativity and the hard work you do — you don’t need to try and build yourself up, necessarily. The work you do can speak for itself, and the person you are speaks for itself, too.
• Meet as many people as you can, and make as many friends as you can. I think one of the biggest things I benefitted from was that I became close with the SIDs while I was at BU. Even though at the time I didn’t even consider being an SID, I now keep up with them regularly and ask for statting advice from time to time.
I’ve never been big on “networking” in the traditional, forced, “hand them your card and get their card back” sense — it’s much more important to me to have a conversation with everyone I meet and get to know them. Then, do as many good things for other people as possible, and good things will come in return.
If you could tell your 20-year-old-self some advice, what would it be?
That was only three (almost four!) years ago but it still feels like forever ago…but there are a whole lot of things I’d love to have known then that could have made the past few years much easier!
• You won’t always be perfect, and that’s okay. Most of the time you won’t be able to make everyone happy in one fell swoop, but if you know you’re doing things for the right reason — and you’re able to defend your decisions — then people will always understand.
• Don’t say “sorry” for everything. Apologize genuinely when you need to, but “sorry” as a filler word isn’t necessary to say about 90 percent of the time that you say it.
• Take breaks. Eat lunch or a snack. Drink eight glasses of water a day. Walk around the block if you need to. Get fresh air. Turn off your phone for an hour or two. Take your vitamins. There is nothing at work that’s more urgent or pressing than your mental and physical health. There’s such a bad stigma in professional environments, almost a badge of honor that comes with not eating — “I was so busy tonight, I had a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a handful of pretzels for dinner!” It’s not funny, and it’s not admirable. It’s a bad habit to fall into. Eat lunch, eat dinner, eat snacks when you’re hungry. You won’t do your best work if you aren’t in your best shape. I’m still struggling to find that balance at almost 24 years old now — so I think the sooner we can encourage this mentality in the field, the better.