The University of Mississippi Athletics
Inside Athletics: Langston Rogers
3/10/2008 | Athletics
OleMissSports.com's Inside Athletics is a biweekly blog by the Ole Miss athletics department's senior administrators and key personnel to offer fans added insight into the overall operation of the department.
"You have the best job at Ole Miss. You keep the stats and even get to go to the games for free."
I can't tell you how many times I've heard the above statement during all my years in the athletics media relations profession, commonly referred to as sports information (SID). Unfortunately, it's a perception we continue to face, because ours is a profession of working in the background with little public knowledge of what we really do.
"What do you do?"
It's a good question, but a difficult one to respond to in just a few words. However, it's for sure that our staff does much more than just keep the stats. Depending on the way an institution structures its athletics media relations office, some of the things that come to mind include being:
a trained public relations specialist
a publications professional
an editor
a desktop publisher
a statistician
a campus historian
an event manager
a media liaison
a link to the NCAA
a budget manager
a reporter
a photographer
a webmaster
a graphic designer
an administrator
a teacher
Regardless of size, an athletics program is the most visible component of any college or university. Our office attempts to capitalize on that visibility to promote Ole Miss and its mission. We strive to generate positive media interest by offering complete, honest information, thus minimizing misinformation and allowing us to get our story out first. In the age of the internet and "instant news," we are challenged each day to stay ahead of the curve.
Athletics media relations personnel typically work seven days a week during the academic year, including evenings and holidays. That is certainly the case when it comes to our office. Members of our dedicated staff are on site two to three hours before each home event, making sure everything is ready when members of the media arrive. When the fans return to The Grove after a football game, for example, our staff is still hard at work taking care of interview requests, compiling the final "book" (play-by-play, final statistics, game notes and player and coaches quotes) for the media, completing statistical reports due to the NCAA and SEC, and beginning the process of getting ready for next week's game. Since we close down the press box after the games, it is not uncommon to still be at the stadium or arena up to six hours following the final horn. Our office serves as a positive communication link with a variety of our publics, including the staff, media, fans, community members, alumni, student-athletes, parents and prospective students. We are on-call at all hours to respond to requests from any of those constituencies.
As part of the event management team, we organize, train and supervise staff for scorer's table/booth, statistical crews; write copy for and help coordinate pregame and halftime presentations in football and assist the marketing department in other sports; accommodate media and facilitate press conferences, interviews and photo shoots; and provide information and statistics before, during and after events to the media and scoreboard/message board crews.
One misconception about our office deals with marketing. At Ole Miss, the athletics marketing staff is separate from athletics media relations and is provided through our partnership with TeleSouth Communications.
A major emphasis of our office is to enhance opportunities for student-athletes, coaches and administrators to receive awards or honors, and ensure that all nomination materials are properly prepared and submitted. Ole Miss has been fortunate to have student-athletes win national awards like All-America, Maxwell, Butkus and Groza. While those players most deservingly earned those awards on the field, we take pride in knowing our efforts in the background were important by keeping the national voters aware of those individual performances and accomplishments.
It is also important for our office to help gain publicity for student-athletes' academic achievements and public service activities as well as other positive aspects of our program via radio, newspapers, magazines, television and the web. We must strive to capitalize on athletics and academic success and the role those accolades contribute to The University of Mississippi's national profile.
We provide media training for student-athletes and help them respond positively in stressful or emotional situations. This media training is provided by members of our staff, University staff or by outside media specialists.
As a media liaison, we can help the media dispel erroneous rumors and limit potentially damaging publicity; pitch positive feature ideas to media, indicating what makes the story interesting to reader/viewers; and promote Ole Miss by facilitating television/radio coverage by assisting on-site broadcasters/reporters.
Many hours are devoted to the production of individual sport media guides. These guides, produced in-house using QuarkXPress 5.0 and Adobe Photoshop 7.0, are designed, written and edited by members of our staff, thereby saving the department thousands of dollars each year in publishing costs.
A member of our staff helps manage our official athletics website, OleMissSports.com, and each staff member provides updated copy, statistics and photos on a daily basis for their assigned sports. While TeleSouth controls the webcasts and premium content, the media relations staff runs the in-game scoring updates (live stats) for home events to provide play-by-play to fans when broadcasts are unavailable. Our staff also provides website features to assist in fund-raising, ticket promotion and student recruitment.
The media relations office serves as a historical resource, manages archival and photo files and assists the M-Club Alumni Association in compiling information used in athletics Hall of Fame selections and activities. With records dating back to 1893, we have begun the process of converting paper files to digital files, which will provide quicker and easier access for research needs and help us better utilize future growth. The first phase of transferring photos, negatives and color slides to digital is well underway, and we look forward to the day when retrieval of our historical documents are just a keystroke away.
Senior Associate Athletics Director
Ole Miss Athletics Media Relations
Past Articles
| 02/24/2008 | Inside Athletics: Joey Brent | |
| 02/01/2008 | Inside Athletics: Shannon Singletary | |
| 01/17/2008 | Inside Athletics: Derek Horne | |
| 12/20/2007 | Inside Athletics: Lynnette Johnson | |
| 12/05/2007 | Inside Athletics: Karen Schiferl | |
| 11/24/2007 | Inside Athletics: Blake Barnes | |
| 11/06/2007 | Inside Athletics: David Wells | |
| 10/17/2007 | Inside Athletics: John Hartwell | |
| 10/05/2007 | Inside Athletics: Sans Russell | |
| 09/24/2007 | Inside Athletics: Walker Jones | |
| 09/05/2007 | Inside Athletics: George Smith | |
| 09/05/2007 | OleMissSports.com Launches Athletics Blog |