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This story is part of our CSC 360 package for March 2023, to view more stories, click here.

Women who run March: Joni Lehmann and Katie Green
This feature runs as part of CSC's Women's History Month salutes.

by Kobe Mosley – College Sports Communicators, 2023 Intern

College sports fans know the month of March is the holy grail of basketball tournaments. March Madness, of course, always takes a national spotlight. But conference championships serve as a necessary and highly entertaining prelude. The madness of March includes not only NCAA schools but also the NAIA basketball tournaments as well. Joni Lehmann of the Big 12 Conference and Katie Green of the NAIA are two women who make sure these premier events run smoothly.

So, who makes sure these tournaments run smoothly? Who ensures that every game has a play-by-play broadcast, a viable live stream, game notes, tournament records, transcriptions of player and coach quotes and successful post-game press conferences? Two of those people are Katie Green of the NAIA and Joni Lehmann of the Big 12.

Since July 2017, Green has been the Manager of Athletic Communications and Media for the NAIA. In addition to serving as the main contact for 12 different sports, she is responsible for any media coordination and streaming needed for those tournaments. Green works directly with SIDs and/or coaches to make sure their teams have what they need.
 

Lehmann was recently named the Senior Director of Media Services last fall but has been a part of the Big 12 conference office since August 1998. She handles any and everything media-related for Big 12 football and basketball, which means she runs the show in terms of media for the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament.

For Green, working these championships are her favorite part of the job.

“You're working on this championship for months on end, and then you see it all happen and the trophy and the banner getting handed out to that winning team, and it's just a special moment all the way around,” Green said.

A member of the volleyball team when she was an undergrad at Missouri Baptist, Green takes the experience she had as a student-athlete and puts it to use in her current role today, especially when it comes to putting on volleyball tournaments.

“With [volleyball] especially, it gave me a comfort level of, “Okay, I already know the sport, I already know the facility and what it looks like and what's been done,” Green said. “And so it gave me a chance to be able to give new suggestions from a different perspective.”
 

For the women’s basketball championships she puts on, Green realizes that there is a little bit of a heavier load to bear due to more media presence. Regardless of what the sport is, she continues to think of ways that she can improve the quality of the tournament year after year. Whether it be better graphics, a higher-quality live stream, or interviewing players when there isn’t a lot of media presence, Green does her best to make those student-athletes feel special, just as she once felt as a participant herself.

Lehmann’s role in the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament isn’t much different from Green’s. Instead of focusing on the logistics of the tournament, however, much of Lehmann’s work is completed thanks to the relationships she has built over time. Whether it be with the media, administrators, SIDs, coaches, or student-athletes, Lehmann leans on those and calls them essential in her work.

“The opportunities I've had to meet colleagues around the nation, work with them, and exchange information and ideas … I think that's key in this business,” Lehmann said.

Building relationships was a skill that Lehmann learned early on in her career. Starting out as a journalism major at the University of Oklahoma, Lehmann came onto the scene shy but full of passion. Hailing from a small town, her family was full of sports fans, which led to a love for her local sports figures.

“Growing up, I idolized Barry Switzer,” Lehmann said. “I didn't have actors or actresses or other entertainers that I looked up to … I idolized players and coaches.”

Lehmann’s dream of working with Switzer and OU football was fully realized when she was able to join the sports information office as a student assistant in Norman — a role she quite frankly stumbled upon. While she was there, Lehmann was able to learn from multiple women in the office, including the late Jan Burton and Debbie Copp. To this day, Lehmann is grateful for having that kind of representation early on in her professional career.
 

Similar to Lehmann, Green began working in sports information while she was still an undergrad. After being introduced to the department at her college during her freshman year, she earned an internship for the following year and began working her way up. Starting off with website maintenance and photography, Green eventually became the main contact for several sports. After earning her bachelor's degree, she became the university’s first graduate assistant in the sports information department.

Following the year she spent learning the ropes of college athletics as a grad assistant, Green moved to the NCAA level, taking a position as Assistant Director of Athletics Media Relations for the University of Louisiana Monroe. Between the NAIA and the NCAA, Green doesn’t believe there are any major contrasts.

“The bare bones of the job itself from divisions is really not that much different,” she said.

What Green did see as a difference, however, was the level of expectations and amount of pressure surrounding the job. What she missed the most — and what eventually led to her return to the NAIA — was her inability to connect with student-athletes as often as she would have liked.

“With NAIA schools being a little bit smaller, you have a little bit more contact and a little bit of a chance to create those relationships with your student-athletes and see them grow and change as people more than just as student-athletes,” Green said.

So while she was attending the then-CoSIDA convention in 2017, Green was able to connect with the athletic communication staff at the NAIA, interview with them, and accept a position all before leaving the event.
 

After Lehmann earned her bachelor’s degree, she held an internship at the University of Kentucky before taking on her first full-time position at Stephen F. Austin State University. Lehmann was the main contact for all women’s sports back when they were split by gender. It was at Stephen F. Austin that she learned a great deal about how to navigate the world of college athletics. She owned the mistakes she made in the role and admitted it was a difficult but critical step in her professional development.

“That was really challenging to be 23 years old and not have a whole lot of experience and navigate with different head coaches’ personalities, and what they expected as far as coverage for their programs and being able to meet those expectations,” Lehmann said. “It was a huge learning curve that I've benefited from as I continue to grow in my career, but there were definitely a lot of hard days, as I was starting out, thinking I was never going to get it right.”

After six and half years, Lehmann felt she was ready to move on, leaving Stephen F. Austin for the SEC conference office. Now in a role where her work met even more eyes, she was able to learn how to handle the pressure of working with multiple schools and found she enjoyed being at the conference level. It was also in this position that she learned how to successfully run media for a conference tournament, something that would prove to be helpful when she took a position with the recently formed Big 12 Conference.

Green’s return to the NAIA was not void of any hardships, which are a part of any job. Overseeing several sports, she constantly works to make sure she is giving each one the amount of attention it deserves. Some advice she received along the way, highlighting the difference between advocacy and fighting, has helped her with the task.
 

“If I see something that is imbalanced, I’m sitting down and finding a way to be able to properly advocate for that sport instead of really going in with a fighting attitude, because you tend to accomplish more when you're able to advocate and really share the perspective that you’re looking from,” Green said.

When sharing that different perspective, Green’s relationship with her colleagues allows her to have those tough conversations and still be able to have a working relationship or even friendship at the end of the day. She stresses to anyone that wants to work in sports to value those relationships — they will go a long way.

After nearly 25 years with the Big 12, Lehmann still values those relationships dearly. Even after she no longer holds the position she’s in now, it will be the people she has met along the way that will have made all the work worthwhile.

“When it's time for me to retire, or leave this field, the people and the relationships are what I will carry with me,” Lehmann said. “The games and the big moments will always be great memories, but the relationships and the people will always be my favorite part.”
     

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