College Sports Information Directors of America

 
 

We continue our spotlight on CSC members during Black History Month with a CSC Women To Watch Q&A with Maya Dawson, recently hired as the assistant athletic communications director at Cornell College.

Dawson was named to her new position less than a month ago (on January 16, 2023) at the NCAA Division III institution located in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Prior to landing at Cornell, Dawson was a media relations intern with the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Dawson is a recent graduate of Norfolk State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in mass communication and general broadcast. While at Norfolk State, she was the sports editor and editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Spartan Echo, and also interned with the local minor baseball team, the Norfolk Tides. She also wrote for HBCU GameDay.

She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in sports management from Old Dominion University.
 

When and how did you decide that college sports was the career you wanted to pursue?
MD: When I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to work in sports media, yet not necessarily in college athletics. I reached out to the former SID at Norfolk State and I asked him if I could volunteer. During my four years as an undergraduate, I volunteered with sports information.

At first, I wanted to be on TV, and when I took my first TV class, and I was like, "I don't want to be on TV anymore." So,I became a sports editor my third year for our campus student news. I knew I liked to write, but I didn't want to just write. I did two more internships after my Norfolk SID work to decide whether or not I wanted to work at the campus level, professional level or the conference level.

I had a chance to intern with the minor league baseball team that was close to my school, the Norfolk Tides. Just recently, was at the Atlantic 10 conference as their media relations intern for the fall semester. I just grabbed as many different internship types as I could, because I knew I wanted to get into sports information and discovered how different it is working with a professional team from working with a conference and working on campus. 

What skills did you learn from being a sports editor and editor-in-chief at Norfolk’s student newspaper, Spartan Echo, that translate to your work now?
MD: Efficiency. When I became sports editor and editor-in-chief, I wrote up every game I could just so that I could practice. Since I was already at the home games anyway, I worked every home game for every sport. And it just made me become a faster, more effective writer. You learn how to read a box score and get your information. Being able to tell a story in a 1-0 loss in baseball … find those reasons why it was 1-0. It might seem like there's nothing much to write about, but maybe a pitcher was striking out a whole bunch of guys, or the team was on a winning streak. There's always something to point out in a game. You learn that by being a sportswriter.

You wrote a story for the Spartan Echo in 2019 about the low number of women coaching in college basketball. Do you think any progress has been made in that regard?
MD: I hope so. I remember that was the first article I ever wrote. It was like my application to get onto the Spartan Echo staff. They were like, "Write about something, anything that you're passionate about," and basketball is my favorite sport to cover. It always intrigued me how men were coaching women and men were coaching men. And I was like, “okay, that's understood men coaching men, but how is it only women [coaching] 45% of women's basketball?” And they don't touch [men's basketball] at all. I was just curious about that.

I just hope it changes at every level, whether it's DI, Power Five, DIII, NAIA, high school, middle school, I just hope it changes. I feel like a lot of women, when they have a female coach growing up, they would want to coach because you want to emulate the people in your life. Well, if that person's a man, you're least likely to try to become that because you don't see yourself in that person. So, I hope that it changes for the best and I hope that in the future, there'll be more women coaches.

You’re closing in on a month since starting your current role at Cornell College. What have you been able to do so far and what are you most excited about going forward?
MD: Coming from an intern position at the A-10 Conference to my Cornell role as an assistant director, it's helped me grow more as a professional. The Director of Athletic Communications I'm working with, Kerry Kahl, has been teaching me a lot. The one area that I've grown a lot in is social media. Coming into it, I thought I would have been doing a whole bunch of writing and less social media but now, I realize just how much social media content goes into it and how much planning I have to do.

For this week alone, I had to do a halftime graphic for both men's and women's basketball, a final graphic for the wrestling meet and we have track, men's lacrosse, basketball and tennis (competitions) on the weekend. All these games need social media game day graphics, a halftime [graphic], tweets, player of the week honors to write about. I’m just growing fast as a professional.

What type of work ethic did being an honors student in college instill in you?
MD: I've always been the type of student where I want to do my best because I know that if I give 100%, there's nothing I can't do. In high school, I didn't do much of anything. I went to class and I went home. I told myself when I got to college that I was really going to go out and really do what I wanted to do because I didn't want to waste my time. This was my plan A, B and C. My parents were very supportive of me throughout the process. And they told me we don't care how many times you change your mind (about what you do), as long as when you open a door, you close the door behind you. Don't have multiple doors open. When I wanted to be on TV, that was it. I tried it, I opened that door and I said, "I don't want to do this" and I closed it. Then I said I want to be a sports editor. I opened that door. I didn't want to do it anymore. I closed it.

Talk about opening up the “sports information door” and the steps you took.
MD: When I wanted to do sports information, I opened that door and I fully committed. I reached out to my network, and found out about this organization [College Sports Communicators, then CoSIDA] really early, just by looking at the bio of my SID at Norfolk State. I was able to figure out, "Oh, he's a part of this sports communications organization, maybe I should be a part of it too."

Then, I just started looking at job posting and job requirements. Every day, I was looking up job descriptions for all different kinds of schools on all different kinds of levels, just to see what people want because every school wants something different. UVA is not going to want what Norfolk State is going to want, what a community college is going to want, for instance.

What have you found to be the biggest challenges of stepping into a job at mid-academic year and jumping right in as winter sports are underway and spring sports are getting started in terms of preseason prep, etc.?
MD: When I worked every home game for Norfolk State, I never did any of the statistics back end work. I came to the game an hour early, I worked the game and then I left. And then when I did the internship with the Norfolk Tides, I did game notes. I was there every day, I wrote up every home game story, and then I'd leave. When I was with the Atlantic 10, it was a different working experience than at the campus level. There is no direct interaction with the coaches, SIDs or student-athletes, unless you are at a championship. I just sent emails to connect.

And now, coming from Division I to Division III, not everything is a given. When I was at Norfolk State, they had someone doing social media, they had students doing social media. And then when I come here with a small staff, they were doing the bare minimum social media … so I knew that I could come in and diversify and improve that. Before Cornell, I felt like I never had to plan out a week. Now, I just sit down and just plan out what I am going to do for the week and what needs to be done. I felt like before, it was just "hey Maya, we need this by Tuesday," and I'd do it and that'd be it. Now I have to sit out and actually plan and think about what needs to be done and prioritize.

What challenges have you faced in this sports communications industry as both a woman and a person of color?
MD: For me, it's trying to find a mentor who looks like me. I've had some great mentors. They're all white men. Sometimes I get annoyed … who can I go to that understands what it's like to be the only person of color in the room, who's not a coach, who's not a former student-athlete? I feel like as someone who's not a student-athlete wanting to work in athletics, people kind of overlook you. They automatically assume that I've played a sport. "Oh, did you play [a sport?" "No." "Oh, so why did you want to work here?" They kind of question why you want to even work there. I want to say — I love athletics just as much as you do! I want to make a change in athletics just as much as you do. Don’t assume I am a former player just to be able to do that.

I've had so many mentors over the years, and I’m lucky. I think I had one person of color — and I came from an HBCU school. That's the crazy part. My SID at Norfolk State was white, the communications director at the Norfolk Tides was white, the mentor that I have now through [CSC] is white, my supervisor at Cornell is white. I knew one black lady who worked at the MEAC conference, so I would see her at Norfolk State all the time. And that was it. That was the only woman of color that I [saw] and I was working at an HBCU.

So I think what I would like is ... to help expose more (ethnic minorities) to sports information. I think they just happen to find it. They're like, "Oh, I didn't know you could do this, it's cool." That was me. I was lucky to find this career. It all started as I just wanted to work games. And then I was working games and two years into it I said, I want to do this as a job. I was lucky, and my goal is to try not to make it as lucky for the next person, to educate and let people know that you can do this for a job.

OK, let’s turn to some personal random questions. What are some sporting events on your bucket list?
MD: Now that I live in Iowa, I've got to see Spencer Lee at the University of Iowa. He is a USA and NCAA champion (and has battled so many injuries and surgeries). He's one of the best 125 wrestlers in the country. He has been for years, and if I get a chance to see him in person, man … ! My brother was a wrestler throughout middle school and high school and wrestling was one of the first sports that I ever worked because I was a team manager my sophomore year [of high school.] It was one of the first things that really got me into sports.

MJ or LeBron?
MD: I can't really pick, and here's why. When it comes to picking a favorite player, I'm more of a stats person. I'm very stat-oriented. I like to look at the numbers. And I haven't seen MJ play in person, I've only seen LeBron, so it's very hard for me to sit here and choose one over the other. MJ was playing against some really good people, a lot of Hall of Famers, but so has LeBron … I love them both. I just can't (choose one)!

Favorite things to do in your free time?
MD: I take a lot of pride in my job so most of the time, I'm just working. When not working, I'm an avid reader. I'm a gamer as well, and I like to play games or watch people play games. I like to go to the movies. And I like to roller skate too. I'm (also) the type of person who likes to go out to eat, I like to go to Buffalo Wild Wings a lot so I can watch some games!