College Sports Information Directors of America

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Joe Seil – Nazareth College, Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director (retired)

CSC Lifetime Achievement Award

by Dennis O’Donnell – University of Rochester (retired) // Special Awards Committee member and 2023 fellow Lifetime Achievement Award winner

When the athletic communications director for the 21st century talks about his or her duties being complete for one athletic event, it is most likely a reference to a story, a score on the web page, box score, updated stats on the team page, photos either from the sport archive, or from the event itself, plus a note or teaser about the next time the team or the athlete will compete.
 
It’s standard procedure these days with the growing communications demands — particularly in the social and digital world. Job titles are different today, evolving from sports information directors into athletic communications directors, and software design advances and the ever-changing social and digital platforms keep the jobs evolving as well: crop photographs with just a few mouse clicks, design social media templates, manipulate text and point sizes, write a headline that fits and post on multi-platforms.
 
Not quite the way that Joe Seil, a 2023 CSC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, could ever envision his career when he began in the profession.
 
 
Seil began his career as a fresh-out-of-college reporter for the Canandaigua Messenger in the Finger Lakes Region of New York state. He spent six years working for newspapers before accepting a job as the SID at Nazareth College — an institution ‘just down the block’ from his alma mater, St. John Fisher College, where he studied for a journalism degree.
 
That career drew to a close when Seil retired from Nazareth in late August, 2022. He spent 36 full years at Nazareth, retiring as an Assistant Athletics Director and as Sports Information Director. He worked under the auspices of the Nazareth campus communications/PR office. Now, he works occasionally as a webcaster for the Golden Flyers in the 2022-23 season. He has called Nazareth games this season in various sports.
 
The Golden Flyers have made his time worthwhile. Nazareth teams have won more than 60 Empire 8 Conference titles and four national championships — with three in men’s lacrosse. Lots of success to promote.
 
When Seil began a two-year stint with the Messenger, he was the writer, the photographer, the photo processor, and the layout person. That background helped him secure his SID position.
 
He moved to the Syracuse Post-Standard for two years, then accepted a job as a technical writer with Gleason Works. At the Post-Standard, he covered a variety of high school sports plus local colleges, including Cortland State, Colgate, and Hobart, which was a NCAA Division III lax powerhouse before moving up to Division I.
 
In 1986, Seil answered an ad placed by Nazareth looking for a sports information director.
 
“I was ecstatic when they hired me,” Seil said. “I had no pure SID experience.” His writing background and his experience in layout and design helped, especially working in the school’s public relations office. The printer — located in Niagara Falls (roughly 100 miles to the west) — typeset his copy and sent the proofs to him. He approved it and designed a layout. The printer completed the job. Not anything the Gen Z athletic communicators could ever envision.
 
Those were good days for area college SIDs. The Rochester area had four television stations and two dailies — a morning paper and an evening paper. Both had full sports staffs, so Seil could place stories on a range of teams.
 
Working out of the PR office did offer challenges, however. If he wanted to travel to a road game, he had to justify it to supervisors. The TV and newspaper coverage would be better with him there to report newsworthy items. If the game was a four-hour bus ride away, he was not going to be in the office at 9 am the following morning. When Nazareth signed a contract with Hot Talk radio (1280 AM), Joe was the play-by-play voice.
 
As mentioned, Nazareth won three national championships in men’s lacrosse — 1992 in Philadelphia, 1996 and 1997 in College Park, Maryland. ESPN televised the DIII title games from College Park. In addition to the typical SID-created material, Seil worked to come up with quickie player notes for the sideline reporters.
 
The athletic program grew quickly. In 1986, Nazareth had 13 sports. Now, that figure has doubled. An SID’s usual tough times are the crossover seasons — one season is winding down with post-season, another one has just started. We know the regular season in winter is tough: both genders competing in basketball, swimming, track & field, and ice hockey, men’s volleyball, equestrian.
 
When Peter Bothner took over at Nazareth as the Director of Athletics in 2000, he made two changes which helped immensely. Bothner had Joe transferred to the athletic department, and he lobbied for a full-time communications assistant, particularly as computerized statistical programs were coming into vogue and created learning curves and time on task.
 
Bothner promoted Seil to assistant athletic director in 2005 and gave him a leadership position with Nazareth’s Hall of Fame committee. When Nazareth added ice hockey 11 years ago, the Golden Flyers added an assistant SID. Until then, freelancers worked at games. One freelancer did web commentary while Joe did StatCrew. The full-time assistant took over StatCrew, allowing Joe to move into the webstreaming position.
 
Outside of his Nazareth duties, Seil has been an active member of both College Sports Communicators and EAST-COMM (formerly ECAC-SIDA). He has been suitably honored for his efforts on a local and national basis. He is a past recipient of the Charlie Wagner Award from the Rochester Press-Radio Club. It is presented annually to the person who does the most to promote athletics in the Rochester area. He won numerous publication awards from CSC, including “best in the nation” honors, along with Fred Stabley, Sr. Writing contest national and district awards.

In 2011, Seil was honored by both CSC and EAST-COMM. He was selected EAST-COMM’s Irving T. Marsh Award honoree for outstanding contributions to the sports communications profession and was recipient of a 25-Year Award from CSC.
 
This fall, just one day after announcing Nazareth’s men’s soccer tournament on September 3, 2022, Seil was inducted into the Frontier Field Walk of Fame for outstanding service to Nazareth College.
 
When asked why retire now, Seil lets you know he is satisfied with his decision.
 
“I’ve accomplished a lot,” Seil noted. “I’ve always enjoyed watching the kids compete. I can still do that, now.”
 
And, when the event ends, he can walk out without any additional duties.