In the January edition of NAIA SIDA spotlight series, Rachel Moore, Assistant AD/Director of Athletic Communications at Central Methodist University, visited with veteran SID Ryan Wronkowicz of Lourdes University on his time at both the NCAA Division I and NAIA levels. Ryan gives us an insight look into the inner workings of SIDs at the NAIA level and additional responsibilities as an Assistant Athletic Director.

This content is produced/provided by NAIA-SIDA.

Ryan Wronkowicz | NAIA-SIDA Spotlight

This week we’re chatting with Addy Payne, a member of the Wittenberg women’s swim team, alongside a former member of the program and Hall of Honor Member, Brenda Shaw. The two talk about the team’s strong bond, their fun times on road trips, why they chose Wittenberg and more.

This podcast is part of Division III's year-long celebration of it's 50th anniversary. For more information, visit on.ncaa.com/diii50.
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DIII SMALL TALK: Episode 49: Addy Payne & Brenda Shaw, Wittenberg

In the final episode of this series, we’re chatting with Brady Musser, a member of the men’s soccer team at Adrian, alongside a former member of the program Justin Sarka. The two talk about their favorite memories with the team, what happens when their teammates sleep through the alarm… twice, what they hope for the future of Division III and more.

This podcast is part of Division III's year-long celebration of it's 50th anniversary. For more information, visit on.ncaa.com/diii50.
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ncaadiii
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncaadiii
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@ncaa?lang=en
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncaadiii

DIII SMALL TALK: Episode 50: Brady Musser & Justin Sarka, Adrian

In the first NAIA-SIDA Spotlight of 2024-25, Assistant AD/SID Rachel Moore of Central Methodist University visited with Lindsey Branch of Montana Western. Lindsey discussed making the jump from high school coaching to Sports Information and her election to the NAIA SIDA Board as an at-large representative!

Lindsey Branch | NAIA SIDA Spotlight

This was the first in the CSC "Athletic Communications Building, Developing and Empowering Your Staff Live Webinar Series" presented during the 2024-25 academic year.
 
The presenters discussed how to go about identifying, hiring, developing and empowering a student staff, in this time of shortened staffs and the need to cover numerous game day events and office management duties.

They gave tips and strategies to bolster your office staff and office content production. This included: how to identify potential student workers on your campus; using Google docs, excels, calendars and GroupMe software to organize the students' schedules and organize their work flows; how to ID the best students for the diversity of assignments, and training for those assignments.
 
They also discussed the importance of mentoring student workers and giving them opportunities to network and enhance their skills sets. Each panelist emphasized talking to student assistants about the "why" of their jobs and to help them understand how their contributions are making a difference in your athletic organization, and how their student worker skills and experiences will benefit them career-wise. 

Presenters:
- Alex Gutierrez, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Assistant Sports Information Director @AGutierrez_WPI
- Bryant Gray, College of Coastal Georgia Director of Athletic Communications @BGray25WE
- Emilia Frizzi, The Ohio State University Assistant Director of Athletic Communications @emilia_frizzi
 
Moderator/Presenter:
- Adam Ledyard, East Texas Baptist University Assistant Athletic Director for Communications @adam_ledyard

Webinar: Building A Winning Student Staff

During this webinar, Adobe specialists Donna Caldwell and Eric Rowse held a discussion on all-things Adobe Express and some of the newest additions to the software and answered audience questions.

For those who attended CSCUNITE24 convention in Las Vegas, both Donna and Eric were popular presenters throughout the four-day event, holding numerous Adobe workshops and office hours where they worked directly with CSC attendees on projects and helped with specific questions.

This webinar focused on the tools within Adobe Express that will assist CSC members and our colleagues in creating brand-worthy content with production shortcuts and time-saving techniques. There are tips and advice for all, regardless of your level of experience with the cloud-based design and content creation platform. One main theme of the session was to help CSC members improve their productivity when creating graphics, web pages, videos and other digital assets.

Topics included: Using the Adobe Express tool of lockable template fields; setting up "bulk create" templates for asset creation; working with Firefly Gen AI styles in making brand-approved assets.

Presenters:
- Donna Caldwell, Adobe Principal Solutions Consultant
- Eric Rowse, Adobe Senior Solutions Consultant
 
Moderator:
- Patrick Murphy, Colorado School of Mines Athletic Communications Coordinator/CSC Creative and Digital Design Contest Committee chair

Webinar: Craft Dynamic, On-Brand Content By Leveraging the Power of Adobe Express

As athletic communicators and creatives at every divisional level are responsible for setting up team media days/photo days to capture a wide variety of content for their digital/social and broadcast campaigns, the webinar panelists discussed how best to create a sports media day with structure, organization and best practice suggestions to make media day planning and execution more efficient, fiscally responsible and productive.

These Media Days/Content Days/Photo Days events can include any or all of the following: headshots, video interviews, photography for promotional collateral, fun personable videos. long-form video interviews.

In addition to answering 14 questions from the attendees, the presenters gave insights and suggestions on:
- planning your budget and time and assessing the scale of the event to gauge appropriate resources needed
- how to hold a successful content day with limited budgets and resources/personnel
- types of equipment and setups to use, in terms of actual room space, backdrops, camera and video equipment and making stations for each student-athlete to go to
- how to make each teams' media day feel special and unique for them
- how to keep your collection of student-athletes engaged and energized as you work with them on content; how to ensure that they stay organized and
- types of content to collect on media days
- how to work with hesitant/shy student-athletes
- how to work with coaches and being clear on your strategies and the "why's" of setting up these sessions
- in the age of NIL, how to best distribute content from these special days to your student-athletes for their own personal branding and posting needs
- post event, best practices for the work involved to organize, catalog and disseminate the content you captured

Panelists:
- Temi Bajulaiye, America East Conference Associate Director, Creative Services & Digital Media 
- Emily Dorko, Adelphi University Associate Athletic Director for External Relations/SWA
- Imry Halevi, Harvard University Senior Associate Director of Athletics - Content & Strategic Communications
- Tyson Hutchins, BYU Associate Athletic Director for Creative Strategy

Moderator:
- Cobe Wastler, Air Force Academy Director of Digital Strategy

Webinar: Making the Most of Your Content Days/Media Days/Photo Days

In this October edition of our NAIA-SIDA Spotlight series, we visited with Mitchell Huppert of Marian University in Indiana. We talked about his time as an intern with the Indianapolis Colts before he the Assistant SID and now Head SID for the Knights in Indianapolis!

Mitch Huppert | NAIA SIDA Spotlight

The CSC U committee and panelists discuss our College Sports Communicators (CSC) organization, our members, the CSC U Committee and the benefits of being part of our ever-growing membership. CSC is the professional organization for all those who are athletic/media relations contacts and the creative/digital athletic department members - and those exploring the profession.

Bring your questions and see how we can help you navigate issues and questions AND how we provide lots of networking and mentorship opportunities and how these opportunities can open doors for your future successes.

Note: This webinar is geared toward the audience of the CSC U Committee - new full-time and part-time athletic communications professionals and emerging professionals (undergraduate and graduate student assistants, graduate assistants, interns)

Panelists
- Caleb Garner, Arkansas State Director for Media Relation
- Katie Gonzales, Illinois Wesleyan Assistant AD - Athletic Communications / CSC Executive Board Member
- Amanda Phillips, Oberlin College Associate Director of Athletics Communications & Digital Media Strategist/Assistant Women's Lacrosse Coach
 
Moderator
- Brian Odgen, Mississippi State Associate Director/Communications

Webinar: Town Hall - What is CSC? What is CSC U?

During Global Diversity Awareness Month, the three panelists and moderator, all leaders in the DEI space, offered their thoughts and answered numerous questions from webinar attendees on today's environment for diversity, equity and inclusion in the ever-changing and somewhat volatile politically charged landscape that administrators, coaches and student-athletes are currently navigating in.

They spoke on the shift towards a more nuanced approach to DEI - moving away from only offering programming initiatives and training, to policy writing and carving out space for people to bring their authentic selves to work and to the competition fields and arenas. They discussed various ways to build an inclusive workplace when laws and policies are changing all around us.

Additionally, they addressed the following in DEI work, with recommendations for CSC members:
- Storytelling: How communicators can best show employee and student-athlete impact and how CSC members can help tell these stories and humanize and personalize student-athletes, coaches and staff members in this inclusion space
- Read and get educated on legislation and what DEIB (belonging) policies are in your community 
- Noting the danger of placing DEI work in a silo, as it needs to be woven into the fabric of your department and leadership team
- Managing DEI work when serving on a committee/in a department where everyone is not on the same page with the importance of this work - and how to approach people to bring them together
- What are the "blind spots" right now when it comes to inclusion work in athletic departments, and strategies and ideas in managing them
- Best methods to ask DEI questions to lead to healthy conversations when those conversations have not typically taken place in your workspace

Panelists:
- Derek Cowherd, University of Louisville Associate Athletics Director for Community and Culture
- DeeDee Merritt, NCAA Managing Director, Leadership Development 
- Ashleigh Clare-Kearney Thigpen, LSU Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Advancement

Moderator:
- Kendrell Watkins, Long Island University Senior Associate Athletics Director for Revenue Generation

Webinar: Navigating DEI in Today’s Landscape

As colleagues in the college sports areas of communications, creative work and marketing, this webinar is a collaboration between College Sports Communicators (CSC) and the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators (NACMA). The presenters, from both CSC and NACMA, focused on sharing strategies and insights on how to maximize your promotion, publicity and storytelling content - and capturing fan and audience engagement – independent of team performances.

Topics discussed:
- Engaging fans from diverse groups, particularly in unique environments
- Within your local media market, the importance of creating positive relationships with reporters and broadcasters; emphasis on home-town storytelling via social media and Zoom; media day/photo day strategies when you are not located in a major media market
- Best practice in collaborating with your fellow athletic department colleagues to promote your programs, support marketing/ticketing/communications/event initiatives and engage fans
- Setting up local broadcasts of your games
- Keys to keeping fans and customers engaged in your programs
- Managing the push-and-pull between sports coverage and promotions during crossover seasons
- For special day celebrations: ideas for ticket sales and promotions
- Promoting your student-athlete alumni
- Capitalizing on new hires

Panelists:
- Alyshia Allison, Old Dominion University Assistant Athletic Director of Marketing
- Eric Bohannon, Old Dominion University Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications
- Calvin Larson, Michigan Tech Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations

Moderator:
- Michael Smoose, San Jose State University Associate Athletics Director for Marketing, Digital Media and Licensing

Webinar: Driving fan and media engagement independent of team performance

College Sports Communicators is the premier professional and educational association for strategic, creative and digital communicators across intercollegiate athletics in the U.S. and Canada. Known as College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) for its first 65 years (1957-2022), the organization adopted a new name and associated visual identity in 2022-23.

Our new brand identity is a major step in a larger strategic plan to define the association’s evolution and expansion. It is designed to represent our brand promise –- connect and support all communicators in college sports through advocacy, leadership, education, recognition and collaboration.

Ryan Wronkowicz | NAIA-SIDA Spotlight

College Sports Communicators

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