During my recent visit to Chapel Hill, N.C., on Wednesday, I ventured over to the school’s bookstore and bought a book on North Carolina head women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance.
I knew very little of Dorrance other than what the numbers tell – 21 NCAA Championships, numerous All-Americans, countless student-athletes who have become mainstays on the U.S. Olympic Team. But I bought the book because I love reading about leaders, especially those who have proven themselves to be among the best.
Sometimes success is dumb luck, a fortune of one’s environment or circumstances. But when success is maintained for a long period of time, there’s often numerous intangible elements that separate those who succeed and those who don’t. Following a successful plan that someone else has used is not going to work for you, necessarily, but by extended study into the lives of a number of leaders, I believe it’s possible to acquire the various elements of success that will make you successful.
One of the stories in the book – The Man Watching by Tim Crothers – that most hit home with me was one of Dorrance’s player conferences with superstar Mia Hamm before her sophomore season. He asked her what she really wanted out of her career and, though it took some time, she eventually blurted out “To be the best.” Dorrance then tells of how he flipped the light switch off and the two sat in darkness for a minute. The then flipped the light back on and said “It’s just a light-switch decision. That’s all it takes, but you have to make that decision every single day.”
I think there’s many great people in the athletics communications profession who have the potential and talent to be the best, but aren’t turning on that light-switch because they haven’t been empowered to. For many, the effort to turn that switch on day after day without the encouragement or empowerment to do so, becomes too much.
Dorrance stresses the importance of making “being the best … something tangible, no longer abstract.” That’s what should be happening in the athletics communications profession. I feel confident in what I’m about to say: If an athletics communications professional walks into a job interview for his or her first full-time (assistant SID) job and when his or her goals are asked, he/she responds “I desire to be the best,” I can say that 75 percent of the time, that person is NOT going to get the job.
It’s too much work. If you hire someone who wants to be the best, they’re going to be needy. They’re going to want added responsibility, they’re going to want constant feedback on how to improve their skill sets. But, most importantly, they’re going to cause problems. Here’s why: In their quest to become the best, that SID will start providing services for their coaching staffs or the media and then – EVERYONE else will want it.
EVERYONE ELSE WILL WANT IT.
That is the phrase of disempowerment in college athletics. You can’t create this Web page for your softball coach, because then the volleyball coach will want it. You can’t travel with the golf team because the tennis coach is then going to want his/her SID to travel with their squad.
That kind of mindset – prevalent at many schools in college athletics – is what limits our programs and limits ourselves as professionals. In reality, each of us should only be limited by the reach of our own imaginations.
When I run my own office one day, it is my aspiration to create the athletics communications version of the “Dream Team.” To create a championship culture to provide first-class media services. We will be regularly recognized as the best within our conference and in the nation.
I want the best women’s basketball SID, the best baseball SID, the best golf SID, the best water polo SID and on and on to be on my staff. My last post was about identifying the best in each respective sport. I want my entire staff to consist of the best, both individually, and collectively as a team.
Here are the key factors I look for in identifying personnel talent to fit into the “Dream Team” environment:
1. Desire to be the best: This is the defining factor in creating an effective athletics communicator. This can’t really be taught and it can’t be faked. Each person has to want to be the best. I know with some of the workplace environment that some SIDs are in, it’s difficult to flip on that light switch every day, but the key is – In the right environment, is this a person who is willing to flip on the light switch to be the best on a daily basis? I want people who are willing to clearly define their goals and evaluate their progress towards those goals. I also want people who are committed to professional development – active in CoSIDA, active in PRSA, pursing an advanced education. As a leader, I want to know – where do you want to go, how can I help you get there, and how does it support the group mission?
2. Desire to push others to be the best: So, everyone else will want it? Great! I want a staff that pushes each other to be the best. You’re doing it, so I now I need to be doing it. Let’s create an environment with a free-flow of ideas – how can we get better? What did you see another school doing that we can adopt in our department? What did you see in my work that I can improve on? We all bring different talents and different perspectives to the table. Why not benefit from that instead of shunning it? If one person is doing it, let’s all do it. And let’s help each other accomplish that goals.
3. Ability to fit into championship culture: It’s all about getting the right people in place in order to be successful. It doesn’t mean having a staff full of best friends (although that would be nice), it means having a staff that works incredibly well together and all supports the mission. I have seen staffs where everyone alone is an All-Star, but no one works well together and it doesn’t work. You can’t create a championship culture with a staff full of individuals, you have to do it as a team. It doesn’t mean hiring all your friends either – the most important goal is that everyone works well together. I have plenty of friends out there who I might not hire. I have some friends who are great SIDs, who I might not hire. The culture I propose does not fit everyone and that’s okay. It’s not a criticism of anyone – it’s perfectly fine. We all have expectations of what we want and they’re not all the same.
4. Willingness to be a 24/7 SID: I don’t care when you come in the office. I don’t care what your hours are. I don’t care if you aren’t at work and don’t take leave. Just get the job done and do it better than anyone else in the nation. In fact, I don’t want you in the office all day. As a communicator, you should be out building and strengthening the relationships with the media, your coaches, your student-athletes and your colleagues, attending meetings in your local PRSA chapter or doing committee work for CoSIDA. But what I do expect is that when your coaches call you, you answer and attend to their requests no matter what time of day it is. If the student newspaper requests a photo at 11 p.m., send it to them. If your coach wants stats at 7 p.m., send it to them. When I call, answer. Don’t want to get into the office until 1 p.m.? Fine with me.
5. Talent: How good is your skill set? Are you a good designer, a good writer, a good communicator? This is critically important, but this is the one thing that can be learned. Notice, I mention this last. While top-notch talent is important to the success of a championship communications office, the other four factors are what define members of a “Dream Team.”
The question then becomes, how does the athletics communications profession morph into one in which its professionals want daily to flip on that light switch and be the best. I think many of us have that potential deep within us – it is for us, as a profession, to determine what is causing the gap between that ability and its reality.
Maybe during these summer months, we would all be well to sit down and determine what holds us back from being the best.
Which of these things can we change and which can’t we? Some things aren’t even directly related to our profession, but hinder us. Do we need to get our finances in order? Do we need to drop a few pounds to give us more energy? Do we need to be more organized? Are we taking enough time for ourselves? How can we recapture our competitive bite to become the best in the business?
It’s hard to evaluate these things and make slight adjustments, but I hope each of you will join me in making these evaluations and tweaks during your offseason. Maybe you too will find yourself blurting out your desire to be the best.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Willingness to Learn From The Best
Perhaps one of the most intimidating obstacles in the athletics communications profession is being assigned to a sport that you have no experience working with, or no knowledge of the sport, its rules and its culture at all. Inevitably, that is going to happen to everyone in this field at one point or another, often early in a career.
Whether its track and field, field hockey, swimming and diving, lacrosse or synchronized swimming, odds are, each athletics communications professional will be assigned to serve as a primary contact for a sport that he or she is unfamiliar with.
The natural human instinct - which is probably exacerbated with the growing disenchantment among talented athletics communications professionals - would be to use your inexperience and lack of knowledge of that sport as a crutch. That is - blame any failures on your lack of knowledge of that sport and your inexperience as a chief communications contact for that sport.
Excuses or actions like that are one of the things that are wrong with our profession.
Instead, look upon your new sport as an opportunity to learn and get better, which each of us should be striving to do on a daily basis.
I have given this advice several times over the past few months, so I felt it would be prudent to write a blog post about how to handle this type of situation. I am delighted that I’ve had the opportunity to give this advice and that there are so many new-to-sport SIDs out there who are eager to learn.
Upon being assigned said new sport, the first task that an athletics communicator should undertake is to find out who the best communications director for that sport is across the country. Ask your friends in the business who they feel the best contact in that sport is, search the web - see what communications directors in that sport have earned recognition, check the CoSIDA publications contest results - see which SID or school is consistently among the leaders in the annual contest. The best method is asking any communications professional in that sport - “Who is the best SID in your sport?”
Once you have identified that person, start studying their work as much as possible. How do they write their releases? What information is most pertinent in that sport? What charts do you like in their game notes and how can you adapt that information? Start modeling your work off of that person - if you need help on a post-game recap, find a recap that person wrote in a game situation very similar to your game and try to use their release as a template.
I’m not saying to be a copy-cat, but there’s no better way to learn (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?). Really, it doesn’t have to be just one person - it can be three of the nation’s top communications directors in that sport - with you taking what you like from each.
As the games/meets/matches go on, you will slowly develop your own style. It will be a combination of the expert communicator’s way of doing things, plus your own personal touch and style that you probably used with other sports that you have covered in the past.
Another great thing to do would be to reach out to that athletics communicator that you are modeling yourself after. Introduce yourself, say you are new to the sport, admire their work and look forward to meeting/working with them down the road.
More times than not, these “experts” are more than willing to talk the sport with you and, you will probably find that they will become a friend along the way. From time to time, if you have a question, your mentor would likely be willing to help in any way that he or she can.
There is no better way to become one of the best than to study and learn from the best. I am fortunate to have learned from the very best in the different sports I have covered and am so much better for the experience. Odds are, if they care that much about their sport, they’re going to be as much of a caring person in real life and you two will likely be great friends and colleagues for years to come.
From the minute you take on a new sport as the team’s athletics communications contact, immediately begin asking “Who is the best SID in your sport?”
And remember, it’s never too late to learn. Just because you have been a communications contact for a sport for several years, doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the opportunity to learn from the best. We need to be constantly growing and evolving.
For instance, I was introduced the best athletics communications director in the sport of track and field at a chance meeting at the very first track and field meet I ever covered for the University of Kentucky in 2007.
But, in volleyball, I had been either a primary or secondary contact for the sport for five years at both Kentucky and Florida before I had the opportunity to interact (via e-mail) with the best athletics communications director in that sport. And those interactions, five years into it, have made me that much better.
We can always learn from people, no matter how long we have been doing that sport.
I urge each of you to embrace your new sport and strive to be one of the best in the country. Embrace and be thankful for your mentor relationships each day. Who knows, you may develop a keen understanding of that sport and find a deep passion for the beauty of that particular sport, and you may make life-long friends.
I know I did.
Whether its track and field, field hockey, swimming and diving, lacrosse or synchronized swimming, odds are, each athletics communications professional will be assigned to serve as a primary contact for a sport that he or she is unfamiliar with.
The natural human instinct - which is probably exacerbated with the growing disenchantment among talented athletics communications professionals - would be to use your inexperience and lack of knowledge of that sport as a crutch. That is - blame any failures on your lack of knowledge of that sport and your inexperience as a chief communications contact for that sport.
Excuses or actions like that are one of the things that are wrong with our profession.
Instead, look upon your new sport as an opportunity to learn and get better, which each of us should be striving to do on a daily basis.
I have given this advice several times over the past few months, so I felt it would be prudent to write a blog post about how to handle this type of situation. I am delighted that I’ve had the opportunity to give this advice and that there are so many new-to-sport SIDs out there who are eager to learn.
Upon being assigned said new sport, the first task that an athletics communicator should undertake is to find out who the best communications director for that sport is across the country. Ask your friends in the business who they feel the best contact in that sport is, search the web - see what communications directors in that sport have earned recognition, check the CoSIDA publications contest results - see which SID or school is consistently among the leaders in the annual contest. The best method is asking any communications professional in that sport - “Who is the best SID in your sport?”
Once you have identified that person, start studying their work as much as possible. How do they write their releases? What information is most pertinent in that sport? What charts do you like in their game notes and how can you adapt that information? Start modeling your work off of that person - if you need help on a post-game recap, find a recap that person wrote in a game situation very similar to your game and try to use their release as a template.
I’m not saying to be a copy-cat, but there’s no better way to learn (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?). Really, it doesn’t have to be just one person - it can be three of the nation’s top communications directors in that sport - with you taking what you like from each.
As the games/meets/matches go on, you will slowly develop your own style. It will be a combination of the expert communicator’s way of doing things, plus your own personal touch and style that you probably used with other sports that you have covered in the past.
Another great thing to do would be to reach out to that athletics communicator that you are modeling yourself after. Introduce yourself, say you are new to the sport, admire their work and look forward to meeting/working with them down the road.
More times than not, these “experts” are more than willing to talk the sport with you and, you will probably find that they will become a friend along the way. From time to time, if you have a question, your mentor would likely be willing to help in any way that he or she can.
There is no better way to become one of the best than to study and learn from the best. I am fortunate to have learned from the very best in the different sports I have covered and am so much better for the experience. Odds are, if they care that much about their sport, they’re going to be as much of a caring person in real life and you two will likely be great friends and colleagues for years to come.
From the minute you take on a new sport as the team’s athletics communications contact, immediately begin asking “Who is the best SID in your sport?”
And remember, it’s never too late to learn. Just because you have been a communications contact for a sport for several years, doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the opportunity to learn from the best. We need to be constantly growing and evolving.
For instance, I was introduced the best athletics communications director in the sport of track and field at a chance meeting at the very first track and field meet I ever covered for the University of Kentucky in 2007.
But, in volleyball, I had been either a primary or secondary contact for the sport for five years at both Kentucky and Florida before I had the opportunity to interact (via e-mail) with the best athletics communications director in that sport. And those interactions, five years into it, have made me that much better.
We can always learn from people, no matter how long we have been doing that sport.
I urge each of you to embrace your new sport and strive to be one of the best in the country. Embrace and be thankful for your mentor relationships each day. Who knows, you may develop a keen understanding of that sport and find a deep passion for the beauty of that particular sport, and you may make life-long friends.
I know I did.
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