< Previous8 | Cindy Potter Columbia College (Mo.) Associate AD – Director of Media Relations & Compliance CoSIDA 2nd Vice President The biggest thing that has changed for me during this time is that I’m not afraid to tell my coaches and co-workers that I need help or more time to do things. It’s changed my productivity level immensely, having two young kids at home means I cannot dedicate every waking minute to my work like I had in the past since I have to make sure the kids have what they need first before taking care of work. Dave Albrecht Lynn Assistant AD for Communications & Digital Strategy I started my new job at Lynn University on February 28, 2020. During my 1,634-mile trip, I was filled with excitement for my new opportunity and change of climate from Minnesota to South Florida. Two weeks later, everything at our institution, and conference — along with others across the country — came to an abrupt halt. After a month of working from home, I was furloughed (50% hours & pay) until the end of June. While I was rocked by the first development, I can safely say, this news shook me even more. I know I’m not alone as many across the country will unfortunately experience similar cutbacks at their institutions. I continue to rely on family, friends and colleagues in the industry, through texts, calls and Zoom hangouts, to get through this difficult time. Moving across the country, alone, always has its challenges, but this is the toughest transition I’ve faced yet. Every day I attempt to stay connected, active, healthy and positive. That’s all any of us can do right now! David Alexander College of Saint Rose Assistant AD for Communications It has forced us to reimagine our roles. We have focused on our student- athletes, perhaps with a greater emphasis on those who had their seasons canceled, and our alumni. We have used the opportunity to reinforce that their overall well-being is still very much in the forefront of our minds. We have completed projects that we normally wouldn’t have had the time for. We have developed feature stories for our website, while emphasizing our social media channels to remain connected to them through various videos, while offering resources for remote classroom work and remaining focused. Mathieu Tanguay Université Laval Sports Information Officer For me, it started as I was about to go the airport on March 12 to fly to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to cover the Laval Rouge et Or men’s volleyball team at the U SPORTS national championship. Three hours before leaving, my bosses decided that it was safer for me to stay in Quebec City and follow everything from home. At first, I was bummed about this, but as everyone knows, things soon became a bit more complicated. The tournament was completely canceled. From that point on, I started working from home like all my colleagues. My girlfriend also is able to work at home, so we’re trying to make the best of this situation with our two daughters (7 and 9 years old) around. It’s not always easy to make them do some school work as we are trying to go through our usual work routine, but we consider ourselves privileged to be able to continue working, as many people around us have lost their job. You have to be more creative than ever to keep things interesting and sharing thoughts and ideas with other colleagues around Canada and also in the US has been really helpful. Eric Rhew UNCW Assistant Athletic Communications Director From a professional standpoint, I’ve been working from home since March 23, but have continued to put in work on a daily basis. However, with the cancelation of the NCAA Championships, my opportunity to volunteer at the NCAA Men’s Final Four and work at the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship was eliminated. It’s tough to miss those opportunities, but compared to what other people are going through, it’s very minimal in terms of the impact to my life. Mark Albanese Pacific Lutheran Director of Sports Communication It has shifted our focus away from covering student-athletes on the field to honoring our seniors and what the future holds for them along with stories on alumni making an impact in our community in a time of crisis. Joe Danahey Humboldt State Assistant AD for Media Relations It totally has changed how we’re doing our job. It’s all on the computer and social media. I really miss the interaction with the coaches, staff and more importantly the student-athletes, especially as the SAAC advisor. Rob Carolla CoSIDA Past President The pandemic ended our 2020 season completely, five games short of completion. It has also fundamentally changed the way we work, with all staff working from their homes. Working From HomeCoSIDA 360 | MAY 2020 | 9 John Kean Missouri S&T Sports Information Director Like nearly everyone, this has forced us into a different working situation than we’re used to. It has forced us to interact in different ways, like using videoconferencing more often for meetings and has also forced into finding new and creative ways to create the content necessary to keep our audience engaged. Theresa Kurtz Mountain West Conference Associate Director, Strategic Communications The craziest part was watching everything unfold after the Mountain West Basketball Championships had concluded. We had a unique year with our tournament starting a week earlier, so I had wrapped everything and was waiting for Selection Sunday. While many were in the midst of basketball tournaments, I was watching the dominoes fall and glad that we had gotten our tournament in. It has definitely been interesting to go from the busiest time of year (crossover season) to no sports. It gives you a lot of perspective. I went from I don’t have enough time for basketball, softball and track & field to not having any of it. It’s required an insane amount of flexibility to completely pivot from what we were doing to what we are doing now. Nick Guerriero CoSIDA Continuing Education Committee Chair The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted me in multiple ways. As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, being cooped up at home only triggers my anxiety by looking at the same four walls every day. From a professional level, I am hurt and saddened that our student-athletes won’t have the opportunity to celebrate senior days and walk at commencement. Brian Morales CoSIDA Mentorship Committee Chair Like many of us, the transition to the “new norm” of working from home has been the hardest. When this all started, I was already into our 2020 baseball season while wrapping up the 2019-20 women’s basketball slate (the widely recognized #crossoverseason). At the forefront, the most impacted part, for me on a professional level, is not being able to cover our spring sports and seeing the true completion of the 2019- 20 season. It’s a feeling of unfinished business and a state of uncertainty for the foreseeable future. Judy Willson LSU Associate Communications Director CoSIDA Past President The first three years of my full-time career I worked out of my apartment in Kansas City for the MIAA, just two full- time employees working two hours apart from 1991-94. I knew I never wanted to be that isolated for work ever again. Now, here we are back in that mode. Kevin Lanke Rose-Hulman Assistant AD for Communications In addition to the obvious working from home and not working on current games, we also lose the interaction with our student workers and the student groups we work directly with throughout the college. The toughest day for me was watching the students’ mass exodus from campus as state and local governments were beginning to issue Stay At Home Orders. Some were seniors that we may not see again; others are underclassmen we will not see for five months. That entire scene was difficult to take. Justin Laf leur Lehigh Senior Assistant Director, Sports Communications The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted me professionally, much like it has the entire communications field. Besides the obvious ways, it has also given me an even stronger appreciation of why we do what we do. It has truly reinforced what I already thought, that working with student-athletes is extremely rewarding. I was very impacted by being around our women’s lacrosse team the day they found out their season was canceled. Everything I saw was so genuine and real. People were being vulnerable with each other, and they were showing such genuine gratitude for one another. In such a tough time for all, I saw what college athletics is all about, right in front of my eyes, and I feel blessed and thankful they allowed me to be there during such emotional times. I was so inspired by what I saw that I wrote about it. It helped me put all my thoughts into words, and most importantly, served as a tribute for not only the Lehigh women’s lacrosse team, but also all of college athletics. Danny Barnts Point Loma Nazarene Assistant AD for Communications This job is tough as a young professional to find a balance of time for yourself and overworking. This situation and the necessity to work at home has made it difficult to achieve the balance I once did by leaving work at work. Chad Waller UMKC Director of Athletic Communications I have learned to be very specific on my daily goals on work-specific projects. My wife and I are also home with two kids under the age of 7, so we need to be very organized on our work and family schedules. Working From Home10 | Roy Allen Florida SouthWestern State Sports Information Director It has certainly made me appreciate being busy. With us all being in the heat of crossover season when everything happened (cancelations), I think we all get to the brink of that burned out phase, but I can honestly say that I was more burned out of having no games and nothing to do after about three days of our ‘new normal’. Danielle Percival Piedmont Assistant AD of Communications CoSIDA Board of Directors 2020 Rising Star (CD) I think the biggest impact for me is testing my creativity. We often get so caught up in the moment of events and projects that have serious deadlines, that our creativity can take a backseat. Now, the challenge is being creative in the content we’re putting out so it’s not “forced” content. Not just content for content’s sake. Truly quality over quantity. Joe DiBari Fordham Sports Information Director It’s helped me realize that there’s a lot more to this job than just game coverage. My staff has been able to brainstorm and come up with some interesting ideas to keep thing dynamic on the website and social media. That said, I do miss the contests. However, the positive is I now have an office with a window. Working From Home Allison Hogue, WBCA Nick Guerrerio, George Washington David Alexander, College of Saint Rose Denise Thompson, Big Sky Conference 12 | AHEAD OF THE CURVE Creating Efffiiciencies Through Emerging Technology With sports on hiatus right now, thinking about the impact of new technology on the athletic communications profession may seem stressful. After all, we don’t know when sports will return. But when they do, our profession will be champing at the bit to once again be able to tell the stories that emerge from a new school year. Luckily for collegiate sports fans, there are communications pros throughout the country who are ahead of the curve. THE COACH TURNED COMMUNICATOR Jeremy Zalacca dreamed of a career in coaching. “My entire life growing up I wanted to be a basketball coach,” Zalacca said. “My dad was a basketball coach; I was around basketball and college athletics my entire childhood.” Zalacca played basketball at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., and upon graduation in 2007 he entered the coaching world as an assistant. But after one year, he came to a surprising realization. “I spent most of my childhood and most of life preparing to be a basketball coach,” Zalacca said. “It’s eye-opening when you do something that you think you’re going to do the rest of your life, and in one year you’re all of a sudden like, ‘This isn’t what I want to do.’” So, he embraced a career change. Fast forward to 2020 and Zalacca’s career change has paid off. He is the Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications in Hickory, N.C., and he hasn’t stopped embracing change. That is good because the field of athletic communications is changing seemingly by the second. With so much new technology available, it can seem overwhelming. “I don’t think that everything that is successful elsewhere would be successful where we are, so you have to by Aaron Morse | Bates College Assistant Sports Information Director “Any time a new technology comes out that makes any part of the job easier, you’ve got to take it.” Mario Bravante University of Arkansas Associate Communications DirectorCoSIDA 360 | MAY 2020 | 13 Zalacca said. “But we talked and we did the tutorial, and financially they actually made a lot of sense, with the product that they offer, so we ended up collaborating.” And through unfortunate circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blinder has become more relevant than ever. The technology is allowing Zalacca to connect with student-athletes even when there are no sports, such as a recent video his team produced showing the Lenoir-Rhyne quarterback and wide receiver breaking down a last-second touchdown pass from the past fall. “Right now, if we didn’t have Blinder, it would be tough to do some of the things that we want to do in terms of people being able to tell their own story,” Zalacca said. “There’s never a shortage of ideas out there; it’s how can we best execute what we see as being successful on our level and at our university.” READY FOR ANYTHING When college athletics return, from Genius Sports will once again be front and center when it comes to technology that’s changing what it means to be an athletic communications professional. And SUNY Old Westbury Sports Information Director will be ready. From day one, pick and choose and sometimes it’s trial and error,” Zalacca said. “Sometimes you give something a shot, and you think it’ll be great and it doesn’t do as well. And sometimes you try something that you don’t think is great but it does really well.” “I think you just have to stay flexible and always try to be ahead of the curve and stay active.” Zalacca’s willingness to try new technology led him to New Zealand. Well, not literally. But it did lead him to Zealand. According to Zalacca, one of the biggest challenges he faced from a communications perspective was providing the same comprehensive coverage of Lenoir-Rhyne teams when they hit the road as he did when they were at home. Getting instant reaction from student-athletes and coaches after, say, a no-hitter, was very important. “I would try some apps that would record a phone call, and some worked and some didn’t and you wouldn’t realize it until after you did the interview if they worked or not,” Zalacca said. “You sit and you talk to a coach for 10 minutes and then you realize it never recorded.” Blinder is a tool used by some major sports teams, such as the Atlanta Falcons, to coordinate interviews with the media without giving away the athlete’s personal contact information. But at the NCAA Division II level, the athletic communications office is the media for many schools. And for Zalacca, it’s all about the power of Blinder to make video interviews with student-athletes and coaches as easy as a phone call. And he actually discovered it through CoSIDA, which uses Blinder to interview Academic All-Americans. Zalacca thought Blinder looked exactly like what he was looking for but he had one big concern. And it’s a concern that many people in the industry can relate to: how much would it cost? “I almost ended it before I even had our first conference call because I was thinking, ‘There’s no way we’re going to fit this in our budget, these guys work with the big boys, they’re not going to be interested in partnering with us.’” she has been an enthusiastic user of the newest way to keep statistics during a game. Sasu-Twum has been ready for anything since her college days at SUNY Institute of Technology (now known as SUNY Polytechnic Institute) where she played for the women’s basketball team. “As a student-athlete, I had always worked in athletics,” Sasu-Twum said. “My senior year, the SID went away for one weekend and we had just started women’s lacrosse, and he needed somebody to cover. I just ran the whole game management team and immediately fell in love with it.” Sasu-Twum graduated in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in business but initially did not follow up on a possible career in athletic communications. In fact, after graduation she worked full time in social services, but the experience of managing a game in college stuck in the back of her mind. So Sasu-Twum went back to school, receiving a master’s degree in sports administration from Canisius College in 2017. While getting her master’s, she first connected with Old Westbury, earning internship hours in the athletics department. “One thing that I value most is the relationships that I build with everybody within the department,” Sasu-Twum said. “I wanted to stay in the profession, and was able to learn the Even before COVID-19 hit, Jeremy Zalacca of Lenoir-Rhyne discovered he could use Blinder to connect with and tell stories of his student-athletes like never before. To his surprise, the cost made financial sense.14 | ears. Under Rubin’s leadership, has grown from one client (his alma mater Syracuse) in 2000 to 1,200 in 2020, including Lenoir- Rhyne and SUNY Old Westbury. “We work closely with Genius Sports on all the products they release, making sure the stats are accurate, the data makes sense,” Rubin said. “Genius Sports is necessary. Something was necessary, right? StatCrew is a DOS- based environment. As much as I love everybody at StatCrew, without innovating their product, it was not the future.” Rubin is scheduled to speak in a session during the 2020 COSIDA Virtual Convention about athletic communication leaders being digital change agents. “When learning how to lead in this digital environment, it means we have to embrace technology,” Rubin said. “Now, it doesn’t mean we have to use every piece of technology that comes out. “But if we lead by saying, ‘Well, this isn’t the way we’ve done it in the past, so we’re not going to do it in the future,’ that’s not leadership. That’s being stubborn.” office side of everything. Everybody sees the game management piece and they love that part, but the office side is what I really wanted to learn more about.” With a well-rounded understanding of the field, she jumped at the opportunity for a part time job at Old Westbury in 2017. A year later, NCAA LiveStats made its debut on the athletic communications landscape. “They first introduced NCAA LiveStats for basketball last year,” Sasu-Twum said. “I really enjoyed all the nuances and how quickly I was able to pick up on it. I’ve been playing basketball all my life so it was an easy transition for me.” The 2019-20 school year was Sasu-Twum’s first as the full-time sports information director. She loves mentoring student workers and she found they liked NCAA LiveStats as well. Soccer and volleyball made their debuts this fall and Sasu-Twum bought- in completely once again, as did her students. “It’s their speed, they’re used to everything being instant, touch screen, everything is just right there in front of them and they understand,” Sasu- Twum said. “As long as they know the sequence, they will buy in. This year I showed them what the program looks like, what we were working with, and then I showed them StatCrew, and I said, ‘Which one would you prefer working with?’ And they immediately gravitated toward Genius.” Hearing that is probably music to SIDEARM Sports’ CEO Jeff Rubin’s “And being stubborn in 2020 isn’t going to work.” Leaders like Sasu-Twum know the importance of taking statistics to the next level. She worked closely with SIDEARM to integrate NCAA LiveStats into “Panthers All-Access”, the live video streams of SUNY Old Westbury sporting events. That combination helps provide more detailed coverage than what was even thought possible at the NCAA Division III level a few years ago. “I find it very exciting because I know as a viewer, as a fan, that’s what I’m looking for,” Sasu-Twum said. “So if I’m looking for it, I’m pretty sure the rest of the population is looking for it as well.” TRACKING DOWN NUMBERS, WITH THE SNAP OF YOUR FINGERS At the NCAA Division I level, information rules. The Arkansas Razorbacks women’s basketball is more than 200 pages long. If you want to find a statistic about the Hogs, it’s definitely in there. It just might take some time to track down, even if you are the one who compiled the media guide in the first place. But what if you could find the last time an Arkansas player recorded a double-double in back-to-back games or the last time the Razorbacks hit 10 three-pointers in a game, in a matter of seconds? The concept seems too good to be true. But as Arkansas Associate Communications Director was happy to find out, it’s reality. It’s all thanks to a brand new When learning how to lead in this digital environment, it means we have to embrace technology...if we lead by saying, ‘Well, this isn’t the way we’ve done it in the past, so we’re not going to do it in the future,’ that’s not leadership. That’s being stubborn. And being stubborn in 2020 isn’t going to work.” Jeff Rubin, CEO of SIDEARM Sports Zalacca with his student assistants at Lenoir-Rhyne.CoSIDA 360 | MAY 2020 | 15 “We were all blown away,” Bravante said. “And I haven’t even been doing this very long, so you could see the reactions of people that had been in the game for longer, and had spent hours over the years trying to track down numbers, and now you could do it with the snap of your fingers.” Thanks to Athlyte, Bravante is able to use his time much more efficiently. And the process is simple, if previously unimaginable. Athlyte takes the team’s game-by-game XML files from past seasons and creates a searchable database. They also have a way to turn PDF box scores, hard copies that you scan into a computer, into XML files. company: (pronounced “athlete”). Bravante credits being in the right place at the right time for his quick ascension to his current role. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 2018 and after one year as a strategic communications assistant at his alma mater, he landed the job at Arkansas. “I was a broadcast journalism student, and just like every other broadcast journalism student, I thought I wanted to be on television,” Bravante said. “And then I was, once or twice, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to be on TV anymore.’” So he cut his teeth as a student assistant in the athletic communications office for four years, making connections that proved valuable down the road, when his direct supervisor introduced him to Arkansas Associate AD/Communications Kyle Parkinson. Shortly after being hired by the Razorbacks, Bravante joined Parkinson in a meeting with representatives from Athlyte. “The biggest difference for me is the ability to do these searches in-game,” Bravante said. “I’m not wrapping up the game, going to a press conference, writing a recap and then looking up numbers. There’s a media timeout where I have two minutes. I can open up Athlyte, put the data in there, and have the information I need.” Technologies such as Blinder, NCAA Live Stats and Athlyte, among many others, make the future of athletic communications full of endless possibilities. “I think as athletic communications evolves, we’re going to turn into more than just statisticians,” Bravante said. “We’ve seen it already. You have to be able to do a little bit of graphic design, you have to be able to hold a camera, you have to be able to do videography, you have to be multifaceted. “So any time a new technology comes out that makes any part of the job easier, you’ve got to take it.” Nicole Sasu-Twum (right with camera phone) of SUNY Old Westbury has embraced NCAA LiveStats from the beginning, and says the students she trains naturally gravitate to it.16 | WFH Top 10 In our recent Google Forms survey, we asked members to tell us what resources have been the greatest benefit as we navigate our current reality working from home. Here’s what you said. “We’re al l becoming experts with the Zoom, Teams and Skype apps! Our sports medicine team has been terrific at providing information and resources to use for mental health, not only for us, but for our families and children living at home.” Kent Brown Illinois Associate AD/Media Relations #1: ZOOM Overwhelmingly, CoSIDA members have learned the art of the video conference call. A blessing and a curse. #2: REMOTE COLLABORATION Besides Zoom, productivity resources like Google Docs, Slack, DropBox and Microsoft Teams have been clutch, allowing coworkers to share and review projects away from the office. #3: CoSIDA COFFEE SHOP Interacting with another human — and meeting new people — has been a breath of fresh air. There’s something nice about spending 40 minutes chatting with someone who can understand how you’re feeling. “Until the full stop on athletics, I haven’t felt like I’ve had the time to do much of the CoSIDA continuing education series. I’m taking advantage now, having participated in two of the three webinars right after it all stopped. The CoSIDA Coffee Shops have been a great way to catch up with colleagues nationwide.” Blake Timm Great Northwest Athletic Conference Assistant Commissioner for Communications #4: HOME INTERNET Imagine how different this experience would be if it happened before the prevalence of the Internet, or the existence of all our favorite devices like our laptops, smartphones and tablets. #5: CREATIVITY New problems have forced SIDs to look at new ways to solve old problems. Many of the solutions we’re coming up with will serve us well, long after COVID-19 is a distant memory. #6: WFH PRODUCTIVITY Some have discovered how much more productive they can be at home. For others, not so much. The lack of commute in some cases adds hours to the day. Now that we all know what it’s like, might it turn into a work-life balance bargaining chip in the future? #7: LEARNING A NEW SKILL Having more time to soak up knowledge from CoSIDA’s Listening & Leading webinars, browse YouTube tutorials, and draw inspiration by checking out the work of others will lead to being more valuable when we return to our offices. #8: SELF CARE At-home workout programs, meditation, yoga, better diet — many are taking this opportunity to form better habits. #9: PATIENCE Whether it’s learning new technology, waiting on your colleagues to learn technology, or more personal things like homeschooling your children, the change of pace in life and work has been an adjustment. #10: TIME TO REFLECT ON WHAT’S IMPORTANT Never again will we take for granted all that we have. “Zoom has become a great tool for everyone. I can show our AD and marketing people the poster design I’m working on easily through the screen-share option. Facebook groups are great because others share what they’re working on which gives me ideas. I find inspiration seeing cool ideas I can make my own.” Alisha Alexander Lewis-Clark State Sports Information Director See CoSIDA resources on content related to COVID-19 at Pets of CoSIDA Our furry friends provide unconditional love, comfort and joy. With energetic bursts, they greet us at the front door when we come home after a weekend-long road trip with one of our teams. Whether it’s a cat purring and rubbing up against your legs or a dog excitedly wagging its tail, they provide comfort when we’ve had a long day at the office. They’re curled up on the couch by our side while we write postgame recaps at home when we have teams playing on the road at night or on a weekend. They’re our pets and, for many CoSIDA members who are working from home, they’re an important member of the family, providing more than just the usual unconditional love. They travel with us, provide comfort during stressful moments and keep a smile on our faces. I’ve been working in the athletic communications field since my freshman year at Towson in 2000. Until I met my wife Erin — and her cat Evie — at the end of 2010, I didn’t have a good idea of what the feeling of having a pet greet you at the door felt like. In fact, it was because of a CoSIDA convention in 2011 that I found out what that feeling was like. I returned from Marco Island and went to my wife’s apartment (we were only dating at the time) when Evie greeted me at the door. That was just the start. When I sat down on the couch, Evie jumped up on my lap, sprawled out, started purring and went to sleep. I think it was her way of saying, “Welcome home and I hope you never leave me again.” To put this into context, Evie was a very selective cat when it came to which humans she liked. If you need any proof, just ask my father-in-law who will be happy to share his expertise with Evie. Evie and I created such a bond that I was forbidden from mentioning her during my wedding vows when my wife and I married in June 2014. To be fair, my wife did include Evie as part of our cake topper and gave me a pair of cat by Eric Rhew | UNCW Assistant Athletic Communications Director Eric Rhew with his wife, Erin, and Piper the Pup. CoSIDA 360 | MAY 2020 | 17Next >