SID HELP BLOG: Helping Coaches, Help Their Teams

This is the first blog post in a weekly series of blogs that will be titled "SID Help." It's primary objective is to provide fellow athletic communications professionals with some tips and tricks. As member of both Facebook groups: "Things About Being An SID That Are Awesome" and "Things That Annoy SIDs," reading some posts were upsetting, and I felt they were aimed more at venting frustrations, than actually finding a solution to the problem. Here I attempt to create solutions. 

First a little bit about myself. I have 10-plus years in collegiate athletics from Division III to Division I, and spanning multiple departments. Starting out at an unpaid volunteer at a tiny, Division III institution in Boston provided me the opportunity to learn different skills, and I quickly rose to become the Director of Sports Information where I built its athletic communications office (one part-time assistant, surrounded by one intern, and two student assistants). All along the way I continued to educate myself in learning the ropes of Division, working numerous games at Boston College. Fast forward to the present day, where I've spent the past nine months at Harvard. 

After a decade in the profession, it is unbelievable how much it has changed - for the better. Technology makes our lives easier, but to quote the man who inspired this blog, Randy Pausch, "only use technology if it's worth it." But as all the advancement in technology has made the profession easier, it still has not changed the value we bring to coaching staffs. 

With the demands on coaches time becoming greater and greater, it is even more important for them to have someone to help them keep things in perspective. This is where athletic communications comes in. It is called athletic communications for a reason, we are are the people to increase communication between our student-athletes, coaches and administrators. That's the profession.