College Sports Information Directors of America

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Chuck Pool – Rice University, Assistant AD/Athletic Communications

CSC 25-Year Award

by Tyler Cundith – Johnson County Community College, Sports Informatio Director // CSC Special Awards Committee member

A veteran of over 30 years on the Houston sports scene, Chuck Pool is in his 16th year at the head of the Rice Owl’s publicity efforts. He assumed his duties on August 23, 2006, when he became the third person to hold the sports information director title at Rice, following SIDs Bill Whitmore (1950-84) and Bill Cousins (1984-2006). Pool guides athletic communications and publicity efforts for the Owls while serving as the primary contact for football as well as men’s and women’s tennis.
 
Pool joined the Owls after spending the previous four years running his own public relations company, Laysan Communications, which specialized in proactive sports-related public and media relations. He first came to Houston in 1985 when he joined the Houston Astros as the assistant director of public relations. Pool remained with the Astros through the spring of 1992 when he was selected to create the media relations department of the expansion of Florida Marlins. He returned to the Astros in 1998 before entering private business in 1999.
 
 
What contribution have you made to the college athletics communications profession that are most meaningful to you? 
CP: I guess I have never really thought about what contributions I have made to the profession as I’ve always been focused on the contributions I can make to our student-athletes. The most meaningful part of my time at Nebraska, and now Rice, has been the interactions I have with these amazing young men and women, especially in those moments when I can have some impact on their story and draw more attention to their efforts and those of their teammates. To have a student-athlete text to thank you after being named an All-American team and say it wouldn’t have happened without your help (when you realize the NCAA records they compiled demanded such attention) is by far more meaningful than anything else I could do for this profession.   
 
Name the biggest challenges facing athletic communicators today. 
CP: The workload.  Now that I am on the back end of a career, I shake my head at recalling how at each stage I was certain I was busy, but that workload seems so small compared to what we do now.  The 24-7 news cycle, social media, etc. have obviously reshaped the parameters of the business. But, while there is a constant demand to keep ahead of the technological curve, the foundational work that we do can’t be so dismissed or devalued that it is not prioritized. It takes time and we seem to be moving faster and faster away from any appreciation of the need to spend the time on some of these things. 
 
We also are so busy creating the next content piece that there is little thought or care into how these moments in time are retained or archived. We seem to load up everything on the latest storage platform, then jump to the next without much thought as if it will be accessible to future generations.  One thing about paper and printed photos, they were not software dependent to access.
 
The best thing about our business is .... 
CP: As I mentioned earlier, it’s the opportunity to interact with an ever-replenishing group of young men and women who give me great hope for our future. They come to Rice and compete against the best in the nation while also handling the academic demands of this university. Having a son attend Rice who also was a student-athlete gave me a far greater appreciation of what those challenges look like in real-time. I can say with certainty, it is not something I could have done. The fact they can master both those challenges and still have time to have some fun and laugh at my jokes is amazing (both that they have time for such foolishness as well as that I apparently can still hold my own with a perpetually younger generation).
 
What difference, if any, has CSC made in your career? 
CP: It’s been a readily accessible network of professionals, even when I was not in college athletics. It has been our advocacy group and while I think we individually struggle with taking time and effort touting ourselves over our student-athletes, it’s important that we have a platform to advocate for us.  
 
Talk about some of your more significant mentors, when you met them, how they helped you. 
CP: My career is essentially a happy accident, in that I was originally part of the wave of aspiring journalists who wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein, but I quickly learned that I was not cut out to cover water resource committee hearings at the capital building in Lincoln. I shifted my focus to perhaps teaching history and coaching at some level until I was first introduced to the world of aports information by Will Rudd, who was working in the office at Nebraska.  When he decided to transfer back to Tulsa, I applied for his position but didn’t get it. When a second opportunity opened in the summer, they relented and brought me on board even though I was a not-so-rising junior and they preferred to hire freshmen!
 
Bill Bennett was my first boss and while he was busy (at least as defined by that time), he always kept me pointed in the right direction. Don Bryant aka The Fat Fox, was one of that legendary group of foundational SIDs and I was lucky to get my start when so many of them were still active. He taught me the most valuable lesson of all - that this is a relationship business. You must build relationships - and with that your credibility - with media, coaches, etc.
 
Tom Simons came back to Nebraska after Bill left and his experiences in the NFL put a different perspective on how we approached things and made me much better. At the same time, the staff at the Big Eight Conference office, especially Steve Hatchell, Bill Hancock, and Tim Allen, gave me far more in the way of guidance and example than they might ever have realized. 
 
Talk about your time in major league baseball communications …
 CP: When the chance came to move to Major League Baseball with the Astros, it was a leap of faith, but one made very easy because of my boss, Rob Matwick. Rob also was making a similar jump from college athletics as he was the SID at Wichita State. He was as stoic and centered as I was not and over five years really helped me develop to the point where I was able to join the Marlins when they started the franchise. The late Katy Feeney of the National League was always a phone call away to provide advice as I stumbled through the challenge of being a first-time boss on a first-time team as were so many of my colleagues on the other NL teams, particularly Mike Swanson, another Big Eight alumni who was taking the Rockies through their first season. Every one of them placed a great deal of emphasis on building relationships and being credible. I am certain our staff here would never have been honored twice with a Super 11 Award from the FWAA, if those principals no longer mattered.   
 
If you could give advice to someone who wants a lasting career in athletic PR, like yours, what would it be? 
CP: Be open to change and never stop learning, but always remember the foundational nature of what we do. We capture, record, and archive history in the making and that takes a little more time, but it’s essential.  
 
As hard as it is, leave the competitive disappointments at the venue and don’t bring them home and don’t let them impact your relationships with your coaches and student-athletes.  At the same time, savor every success and never fall into the trap of determining if a win was a good one or not.