When I moved out of my parents’ house, I began to realize just how much of my life had revolved around sports. Not kidding, aside from clothes, 90% of my possessions were sports related. From old game programs, media guides, baseball cards, magazines, and scorebooks, my entire childhood was all about sports.

However, I was never a great athlete. Played some baseball in high school, but that was as far as I got. As I progressed into college, I knew that I wanted to do something in sports but wasn’t sure what that looked like.

I had some experience in keeping statistics, mostly baseball but had also dabbled in charting basketball stats on occasion. I loved sports video games (hello, NCAA Football franchise) and used my interests to build website pages about my dynasty teams (as an aside, dyanstymanager.com was the best). From these personal experiences, I had actually started to build myself towards a career in athletic communications… I just didn’t know it yet.

In college, I got connected with the sports information personnel (my alma mater didn’t really have a full-time SID for several years) and began working basketball stats. Doing that for two years opened my eyes a bit to the profession that is athletic communications. Before my junior year, I decided that sports information was the career that I wanted to pursue. I reached out to the new SID at the college and said if he needed anyone, anytime, I would do anything he wanted.

Making that proactive decision was the best choice I’ve made.

I spent the next year-plus learning stats for several sports, began writing press releases for the athletics website, and being acquainted with how everything worked behind the scenes. Before the final semester of my senior year, the SID at the time left for another position. Seeing as I was the only one in the entire department (student-worker AND full-time staff) that knew the ins and outs of basic sports information necessities, I was hired by the college to keep things afloat.

That experience would prove to be very useful. After I graduated, I submitted many applications for positions in the industry and finally landed a job as an assistant at a Division III school. Mere days before I was supposed to move out to my new job, my alma mater came calling with a full-time SID gig offer.

As a 22-year old, getting an offer for a full-time job in the career that you want is too hard to pass up. So, I took it and the rest is history.

I am now in my seventh year as the Director of Athletic Communications at Covenant College, my alma mater. Having been around the school for 17 years now (my dad was the Director of Library Services for 13 years), it’s been pretty cool to work for a department that I spent supporting as a fan for so many years, then as a student. Covenant has allowed me to grow into my role and the profession to be an asset for the athletics department, and the campus as a whole.

The impact that an SID can have on a department, and campus, is enormous. I have only been around the profession for seven years, but have seen my work be an important part of a student’s experience at Covenant.

Each day I do my best to highlight my programs and Covenant College in the brightest light and help others in the profession that seek my advice. I’ve made connections within CoSIDA, have been a member of the CoSIDA U committee for a couple years, joined the CoSIDA Mentor program, and taken on additional responsibilities within the USA South Athletic Conference. I oversee a student staff of about eight every year and recently hired my first part-time assistant SID.

Above all that, I try to be the best husband to my wife, Michelle, and father to our 4-year old son, Joel. Tacking on another kid in summer 2019 and my world of family life and professional life continues to evolve.

When someone asks me about my career and how to get into it, my first response is always this: Be proactive, get experience, and make connections. Those three items helped carry me to where I am today. In the sports world, it’s not always what you know, but WHO you know.

But really, when I look back on my life, there was no way I could NOT be an SID.