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University of South Florida (USF) and Willamette University staffers earn recognition for their innovative projects and initiatives created during the 2024-25 academic year. This is the fifth year of CSC ChangeMaker Innovation Award honors.
by Barb Kowal – CSC Director of Operations and Professional Development
Athletic communications staffs (and colleagues) from the
University of South Florida (USF) and
Willamette University have been selected as recipients of the 2024-26 College Sports Communicators (CSC) ChangeMaker Innovation Award for recent creative work projects.
This is the fifth year for this CSC award, recognizing individual members or departments who have created and managed innovative content. The purpose is to recognize forward-thinkers who bring new ideas to life — and strengthen the position of sports communicators and creatives and their work — with special content, a branding and messaging campaign, new storyteller packages, social media initiatives, a digital series and other initiatives.
USF’s winning entry focused on the development of a “
WLAX 101: Growing the Game” messaging and social media campaign – by members of USF’s communications and creative staff and the Bulls’ lacrosse coaching staff. The award nomination was prepared by
Carl Schmid, USF Associate AD for Branding & Digital Strategy.
The project extended beyond communications and creative content departments to include USF’s marketing department as part of the in-venue experience, ticketing department to drive sales. The campaign, including content on the new program and its student-athletes, game promotions, and a rules video where the players were educating Rocky D, the USF mascot (and in turn, their followers). This initiative ultimately pushed the lacrosse program onto a national stage as the videos were shared and engagement climbed across social platforms. The campaign’s final engagement on social media included 1,099,765 impressions, 38,034 engagements and 1,160,327 video views.
Willamette University’s winning entry was submitted by
Chris Sabato, Director of Athletic Communications, as Sabato developed and implemented “
Automated Play-By-Play Spotting Charts.” Sabato, who has developed numerous technological advances for athletic communicators during his career, developed a system of custom-built Python scripts to extract data directly from the official NCAA statistics database. This raw data is then seamlessly transferred and organized within a Google Sheet environment, resulting, as Sabato noted, “In a dynamically updated spreadsheet providing a comprehensive and easily digestible spotting chart for live sports broadcasts. The entire process, from initial data retrieval to the generation of a finalized, broadcast-ready chart, is completed in under 10 minutes, thus providing a streamlined workflow and helping athletic communicators streamline their work and increase productivity in their pre-game live broadcast preparations.”
"Congratulations to Chris Sabato and Carl Schmid on nominating for, and winning, the 2024-25 College Sports Communicators ChangeMaker Innovation Awards,” stated Jason Yaman, CSC Executive Director. “These two individuals, and other staff members, exemplify the power of innovation, purpose-driven storytelling and leadership. We honor them for turning challenges into catalysts for efficiency and greater promotion of their programs across their respective communications and external units."
The annual ChangeMaker contest is open to any current CSC individual member or team of college athletics communications professionals. If they collaborated on an initiative with department or campus/conference colleagues, the initiative must include at least one current CSC member who was integral to the project. Nominations will open in January 2026 for next year's contest.
“Congratulations to Chris and Carl on their selections as our ChangeMaker Innovation Award winners,” said CSC President Kevin Trainor, University of Arkansas Senior Associate AD. “Innovation is at the heart of what we do as sports communicators. Through creativity and problem solving, Chris and Carl - along with several other members of the USF staff, including other CSC members - identified opportunities to make a meaningful change for their schools and for our profession. CSC is proud to celebrate their accomplishments.”
Here is a closer look at the two winning ChangeMaker Innovation Award entries and the people behind the initiatives and campaigns.
University of South Florida (USF): WLAX 101: Growing the Game social media campaign
Submitted by: Carl Schmid, Associate Athletic Director for Branding & Digital Strategy
Project developers:
Micah Banks, Assistant Director of Communications
Sharn Muffett, Women’s Lacrosse Assistant Coach
Carl Schmid, Associate Athletic Director, Branding & Digital Strategy
Clark Stanton, Creative Content Intern
Click here to view Schmid's "WLAX 101: Growing the Game" submission.
"As we launched women's lacrosse at USF, we recognized an exciting opportunity — to help grow awareness and appreciation for a fast-paced, dynamic sport still gaining traction in many parts of the countryOur content team embraced that moment. They didn't just introduce a new program — they brought the game to life in a way that was clear, engaging, and welcoming."
- USF Vice President for Athletics Michael Kelly
As Schmid wrote in his entry, “What ultimately began as a request to create a video similar to those of other first-year programs became so much more and personified everything that new USF Women’s Lacrosse Head Coach Mindy McCord has been working towards since being tasked with creating a women’s lacrosse program here. With Coach McCord’s mission of growing the game of lacrosse one stick at a time, one player at a time, our group examined several options to help educate fans while promoting the team’s first official game.”
The USF communications and creative team proposed to Coach McCord a video on the lacrosse rules where Bulls student-athletes were educating their mascot, Rocky, which the staff could use on social, in-venue and in email marketing. After initial success with the video on basic lacrosse rules, the communications team realized there was still a gap in explaining some of the more intricate rules of the game.
“Leveraging analytical data from the team’s social media account and knowing attention spans tend to be short, an additional short-form video series was proposed to continue the education process once the season had begun,” Schmid noted.
Subsequent promotions and awareness for the new lacrosse program continues. The particular WLax 101 campaign, resulted in the following social media engagements as the campaign included involving USF marketing and ticketing departments for in-venue experiences, driving sales and higher fan engagement and awareness.
Campaign Social Totals
Platforms included: Facebook, X, Instagram (Feed & Stories), YouTube
24 Total Posts
- 1,099,765 Impressions
- 38,034 Engagements
- 1,160,327 Video Views
Willamette University: Automated Play-By-Play Spotting Charts
Submitted by: Chris Sabato, Director of Athletic Communications
Campaign coordinator, project developer and award recipient: Chris Sabato
View Sabato's finished spotting chart example.
As mentioned above, Sabato developed and implemented a system to easily and quickly prepare play-by-play spotting charts for live broadcasts, using the official NCAA statistics database and building a series of coding through custom-built Python scripts. Those scripts extract data directly from the NCAA stats and transfer and organize the information on Google Sheets.
This innovation is important on many fronts, as athletic communicators and broadcasts know how time-consuming it can be to build a spotting chart manually, often requiring hours of research and data compilation. Using this automated system drastically reduces the time investment to build a spotting chart to less than 10 minutes. In turn, this frees up time for broadcasters and CSC members to focus on other responsibilities.
The direct link to the NCAA Stats Database guarantees the accuracy and reliability of the information, eliminating the chance of (human) error with manual data entry. The use of Python scripts and Google Sheets provides a flexible and scalable framework that can be adapted for various sports and evolving data needs.
As Sabato wrote in his entry, “This automated spotting chart generation system represents a significant leap forward in efficiency, accuracy, and preparedness for live sports broadcasting. Using these scripts and coding guarantees the accuracy and reliability of the information presented. The result is a dynamically updated spreadsheet, with accurate information, readily available for broadcasts with minimal pre-game preparation. This empowers broadcast teams to step into the booth fully prepared, regardless of time constraints. The entire process is completed in under 10 minutes.
Ultimately, for professionals in the athletic communications field, who juggle numerous responsibilities, this innovation provides a crucial tool for streamlining workflows and maximizing efficiency, directly addressing the challenge of balancing pre-game research with other essential duties.”
