ABSTRACT
There is also the personal growth to consider away from the professional side. The SID job in many ways is a young person’s business. A great starting point, but a business where the best work is done by the young. Why? It is 24/7 work, and the ability to have the key components outside of work (family, children, financial security) are somewhat limited. The dedication that one needs to grow in the profession requires great commitment, and the ability to find a spouse willing to put up with that commitment and live the American Dream is somewhat limited. Is it a great starting point? Yes. Are there folks that are able to thrive in the position for a lifetime? Yes. However the combination of those two, unless there is growth into other areas of athletic administration, is limited. There is, however, opportunity to grow on the collegiate level. Many schools offer the opportunity for employees to take classes, teach, or obtain a graduate degree. For those who show a penchant for athletic administration there is a chance to grow into collegiate sports marketing, work with a league, or develop other skills on the business side. But again one must have plans to enter into those fields. If someone doesn’t take the time to think about the future it will be very easy to get caught in a very vicious cycle. In recent years, as part of effort to earn more respect/appreciation, CoSIDA’s (College Sports Information Directors of America) leadership has been pushing the athletics community to view this post as a “communications-based role” instead of an “information providing role.” The thinking is that doing so will help others to see this role in a more global context. The fact that these key roles reside at institutes of high learning should put these communications roles in positions of leadership or strength in the business of strategic communications in sport. There has never been a greater need for effectively managing the brand of a university, nor has there ever been a time where the visibility of athletic programs has been higher. So evolving the roles from “Information Director” to “Communicator” for these multimilliondollar establishments is very, very important. The evolution of social and digital media, especially amongst a younger demographic accustomed to 24/7 communication with various forms of media, puts the “SID” in a very valuable position for any university. He or she deals with the most visible people many times on a campus-college student athletes, marketers, coaches, and administrators as well as the media who cover sports-on a daily basis. So taking this evolving role of collegiate athletic communicators more seriously and in a much more valuable position going forward is extremely essential to the face of a university. Every misstep by a coach, a poor text by an athlete, a slip by a booster, now has a very public place to reside in the digital space. So making sure that the school’s daily public communicator and his or her staff are included, informed, and properly utilized can save a school literally millions in reactive crisis management and thousands of man hours in distractions when a problem does arise.
