College athletic programs are being run more and more like a business every day. The traditional role of the collegiate athletic director has gone by the wayside, replaced by a complex, multi-faceted position that combines sports knowledge with the abilities to handle topics related to budgeting and finance, public relations, and personnel management. Somewhere near the top of the administrative food chain for college athletic programs is a Sports Information Director, or SID. In many cases, the head of sports information at a college holds the title of Assistant Director of Athletics or Associate AD for Public Relations. This person handles a myriad of media relation and communication duties to keep athletic programs in touch with the outside world. The role of the college SID over the years has evolved, much like that of the AD, to include more than just player statistics and game day programs. SID’s now handle any number of tasks related to the athletic department web site and social media presence. They handle athletic department archives and official publications ranging from media guides to programs for a school’s athletic hall of fame induction. They may also be involved with collegiate admissions from the perspective that they design and maintain print or digital media to assist with the recruitment of prospective student-athletes.
While high schools may have taken longer to adjust to the new demands of the AD position, most athletic departments across the country, especially those in independent and parochial high schools, have begun to mirror the collegiate environment when hiring new athletic directors. There are fewer and fewer examples of the high school football or basketball coach being promoted to an AD position when their days of coaching come to an end. The role of the high school AD is less about sport management and more about maintaining positive relationships with parents, booster clubs, and other school administrators. High school AD’s now emerge not only from the coaching ranks but from college academic programs that support degrees in Athletic Administration. These degrees require proficiency in classes such as accounting, sports law, and marketing.
As high school athletic programs become more complex, high schools are realizing that it takes more than just a “modern-day AD” to handle all of the tasks that are expected of them. The next step for independent high schools to take is the hiring of a sports information director that serves as the point person for athletic news and information for the school, alumni, and the local community. High school SID’s are used to promote positive news or unique individual stories to local newspapers and other media outlets at a time when newspapers have downsized their own staff that used to ferret out these stories on their own.
The job description of the high school SID could include but is certainly not limited to the following:
- Publicize school athletic schedules and game results
- Maintain school rosters and relevant team statistics
- Serve as the athletic department’s first point of contact with the local media
- Maintain the school’s athletic website
- Arrange/ hire photographers for athletic events and maintain archival photos for school publications
- Coordinate data and photos for the school yearbook or newspaper
- Arrange publicity for athletes on National Signing Day
- Serve as the schools manager of crisis management for athletic events
- Create and maintain the athletic department’s social media presence including school accounts for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
- Submit state tournament results to the state high school athletic association
- Oversee athletic archives and historical records
- Coordinate web casting for athletic contests and team banquets
- Organize PR for the school’s athletic hall of fame
- Initiate contact with parents and alumni for special events like Senior Night, Alumni Night, and anniversaries of state or region championships
Chances are, many of these duties are already being handled by someone at most high schools, but they are not always an employee that falls under the direction of the AD. Often these tasks are split up between an AD, an administrative assistant, school communication officers, alumni relations officers, and support staff from a school’s information technology department. Unifying these duties under the domain of one person helps send a more consistent, informed message to the community. It ensures that the vernacular of a sport is used correctly in school communications. It also helps ensure that someone pushes out information that celebrates diversity within an athletic department both among sport programs and genders. When this task is handled by a current coach on staff, it is often easy to notice their program get an advantage in media coverage or web site publicity. Hiring one person that is not directly connected to one school program helps alleviate the potential for bias towards one sport.
For schools that are not currently able to take on a full-time SID, or for smaller schools with only a few varsity sports, many local college sports administration programs offer a pool of potential interns or graduate assistants who could assist in some of the above tasks during the school year. However, larger schools will soon realize that this new position certainly has enough responsibilities to merit its own position. Not only will this person help alleviate some of the strain placed on other staff members to carry out these tasks but they will be able to enhance what is already being done.
The expectations for athletic programs from parents and athletic boosters has never been higher than it is today. Schools are expected to do more than just put competent teams on the field. They must publicize basic information as well as celebrate successful teams and student-athletes. Several decades ago, schools could count on the local newspapers and/ or television stations to come get this information, but now, the information must be provided by the schools themselves. Furthermore, it must be publicized not only in print but in a variety of digital formats to meet the constraints of variety of constituencies. In short, it is time for high schools across the country to give serious thought to the hiring of an SID.
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