I get the question of what is an SID, probably at least once a month. In this week’s blog I am going to give you a snapshot answer to what an SID is and what they do.
First of all SID stands for sports information director and the short answer is, I am the liaison between our athletic programs and the public.
I guess about six years ago when we became the first Division III school in the country to go with a national sports web site (then it was fans only) now it is CSTV, the web became our number one tool of getting the word out to the public.
I have always sent press releases to the media outlets, both around Abilene and all over the state. I still do that, but it is an almost entirely different process. Before we did it on the fax and to send one press release to the 13 people that get all of our press releases usually took about 30 minutes. Now that is all done in an e-mail group that takes about 30 seconds.
Every since I became the SID at HSU, my number one goal was to update the web site with scores of our games on game day. That was not the norm here, or especially around the ASC. Sometimes it was Monday or Tuesday before weekend games results were posted.
It used to be that all that was on the Internet was the stats, roster and schedule. Now you have to have more information out there. Kids go the web for recruiting; in fact they can know all the need to know about us, before they are ever contacted by a coach.
There are other ways as an SID that I get the word out about our teams. I have a good relationship with the person on our beat at the local newspaper and continually feed them information and story ideas and we also are lucky to have three local television stations that cover us on a regular basis.
Now to what the SID really does. Many people think that we have a job that is just going to games all of the time. That is correct, we go to games all the time, but the games are the fun part of the job. Being able to watch the game is what makes all of the work leading up to a game fun.
Here is a checklist of what the typical SID is:
A writer – I write all of our releases, media guides, game notes and web content
A graphic designer – I design all of our media guides
An editor – not nearly as good as I should be sometimes
A webmaster –I do that for all of the HSU Athletics web site
A game-day administrator – Often times that includes helping with crowd control, but also finding workers for games.
A teacher – I try to teach the game-day students I have working for me to do things the right way.
A statkeeper – Yeah, I keep the stats at most of the games.
A public address announcer – You can hear me at soccer, baseball and softball.
A radio broadcaster – I do games on the road in basketball and baseball.
A photographer – I am not very good at that so I usually arrange to have a photographer.
Promoter – Almost any award that any of our kids receive is done through promotions from this office, it can be filling out weekly player of the week forms, filling out recommendations or sending promotional pieces to voters. Any academic awards, or regional or national awards come straight from this office. You know the game programs you get at a game. Those come from this office as well.
Advertiser – If the school paid for advertising in the paper in the amount of inches of copy that I provide to the paper it would be over $250,000 a year.
Those are some of the broader definitions of what an SID does. People ask me all the time what does it take to get into the profession.
I think the simple answer is the love of what you are doing. If you did not love it, you would burn out in a year. It is amazing the number of people that I have seen just in our conference go in and out of the business in my nine years in the ASC. It doesn’t take long to see the ones that enjoy the job.
You can be the best writer in the world, the best graphic designer or the most organized person in the world, but if you don’t love doing the job, you can’t fake it.
I think the rewarding part is the fact I get to be around college athletes that are good kids every day. My daughter gets to be around those players as role models. It is refreshing when you know the time and amount of effort those kids put into their sport.
If I didn’t get to meet, be around, and work with great people every day; there is no way that I would want to have the job I have. With the relationships that I have formed over the years there is no other job that I would want to have.
Around The Campus
The Cowboys got in the win column in football last week. It got a little too close for comfort at the end, but anyone that saw the first two games and then saw last week has to realize that we are getting better every week and that is all the coaching staff can ask.
Tuesday the Cowgirls were supposed to play ACU in soccer. The game started and HSU held a 1-0 lead before the lightning came in and postponed the game. It has been rescheduled for Oct. 16. The Cowgirls host UT-Tyler and Concordia this weekend at the HSU Soccer Complex.
The Cowboy soccer team went 1-1 last week and is now 3-1 in the very tightly-bunched standings of the ASC. It is another big week for the Cowboys as they host a greatly improved Concordia team and preseason favorite UT-Tyler.
The volleyball team swept three matches last weekend and is off to Mississippi College for the ASC Crossover Tournament this weekend. Kaela Parnell and Sam Lucien were named the ASC West offensive and defensive players of the week.
The tennis teams will host the ITA Tournament this weekend. This is a big tournament for the top individuals as far as playing for a berth in the ITA National Tournament and it also gives momentum heading into the spring season. You can follow the results on the front page of the web site this weekend.
It is now less than three weeks before the basketball teams will begin their practices for the upcoming season. It is hard to believe that we are already into the fifth week of the fall sports schedule.
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