It was 27 years ago this week that I drove from our newly purchased home in Nanuet, NY, where I had spent the last five years as Sports Info Director and then Asst AD For Communications at my alma mater, Fordham University, and made the big jump to being the Director of Public Relations for the Philadelphia 76ers.
At just 29, I was the youngest PR head in the NBA, and it was the second time in my career I had taken a “youngest” title, the first time being when just six months out of Fordham, I became the interim SID at Iona College at 22, and then the fulltime SID at Monmouth College just eight months after that.
Three times youngest, and frankly, three times clueless, and with lots to learn, which I wish would have realized then like I do now. Each stop was a learning experience and was great fun growing on the job, but the lessons learned, most times without anyone senior to rely on or take direction from (my one real mentor in the business until much later on, Mike Cohen, had tragically passed away in 1988) it was kind of building the plane while flying it.
However one thing that remained a constant, some of it was self-taught, some of it intuitive, some of it was borrowed and stolen from others in the business, was the value of storytelling in building a brand, and the value of having that strategist in the room as decisions are being made.
Both pieces are even more essential today than ever before, as the media, and the mediums, for reaching audiences large and small are plentiful and having the key professional in place to help build that consensus and match the story to the audience is what the best companies, teams, leagues, brands and platforms do.
With all that in mind, it has been very frustrating to see as cuts are made, especially at the University level, that those being shown the door are those responsible on the front line for sharing, strategizing, and delivering the stories. In many Universities’ and colleges they are called the awful and archaic name of “Sports Information Director,” a title that would be like calling the person in charge of the mechanical engineering department the blacksmith, or the senior official running a finance program a bean counter.
Maybe not exactly, but you get the idea.
Now the issues of the SID in college athletics have been myriad for years…it is an entry level job in many cases, its sometimes hard to quantify the role, and frankly most of those in those positions do not put themselves in a position where they express and explain and lay out their value in terms of dollars and ROI. They are support, and not having a louder voice, or in many cases a seat at the table, is damaging for the profession as well as the individual. In some places they have great value, in many it is misunderstood, and never more misunderstood than now.
I bring this all up as there was an article in CoSIDA.com off of a series of tweets by Steve Kirschner, the longtime and well-respected athletic communications lead at the University of North Carolina. Steve was reacting to a host of schools who decided to gut their sports communications offices while starting to return sports to the field, a misguided and frankly stupid, double edged sword. Hey, you play the games people see the games maybe we do not need someone to tell the story and connect with media…it will just happen right? And when we come back, we can fill those jobs as needed because SO MANY people will be out of work they will come running back right?
Maybe, but is that where you want to make your cuts? How many schools have bungled their narrative with school cuts, starting and stopping programs, losing funds, and miscommunicating messages because they DO NOT have the right communications people included from step one in the decision process. Many times, these people have the pulse of coaches and the media and students and can help shape messages that do not seem out of touch. And when you do not have those communications people at the table and things fall apart, what do you do? Many times, you OVERPAY to bring in a high-priced firm to fix the problem.
It is akin to cancelling insurance and hoping not to have an accident.
It is not just bad business, its bad planning and awful leadership.
Now to be fair there are many schools, teams, leagues, businesses that have downsize communications programs for now, like they have with sales, marketing, and other divisions. That is the cold fact of life. Many professional teams have gone from staffs of seven or eight to three or four or even two, with the understanding that you ramp back up as normalcy returns.
But taking out the whole, or almost the whole communications staff?
Bad idea you will pay for down the road.
Now maybe the cuts are because the storytelling internally buy the professionals that have done the work is poor, and that is on them. Across the industry PR types usually do not do a good job of telling their own stories…it seems counterintuitive to the business of telling other stories.
If you do not document, show worth, and explain all one does, then you are as much at fault as those making the cuts. Maybe that is the lesson learned…tell your story, show your worth and justify your existence.
For the schools that Kirschner alludes to, shame on them. In a time when communication is critical, the last place you should cut are the good communicators. Trim Ok, but cut, no way, and that is not from my POV as someone in the profession. That comes form listening to scores of successful people in every field talk about the critical need for effective storytelling at a time when business is tight…from retail to medicine to politics to media…having the right person shaping, framing and telling the story is saving businesses, growing businesses and keeping companies going.
That is a lesson learned at a young age when handed lots of responsibility…and THAT lesson has not changed. The story is what drives us, and you need competent storytellers to deliver the message.
A college, a center of learning, should know better.
