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University of Houston Athletics
A Look In SIDe
Nov. 12, 2001
By Jeff Conrad
Assistant Sports Information Director
I've never really mastered the art of juggling, but working as a sports information director, you must learn to keep many, many different balls in the air at the same time.
That is what all sports information directors must work through around this time of year, and being a new employee here at the University, I am dancing especially fast to keep all my duties as well as my family responsibilities from crashing to the ground.
After joining the Cougar SID staff in late September, I immediately began work on my two remaining media guides - baseball and golf. Fortunately for me, former assistant SID John Sullivan did a tremendous job of getting the volleyball and swimming and diving media guides out before I came aboard, relieving me of even more pressure.
However, my volleyball duties require that I travel with the team and work during their road matches. That means I have to make the most of my time in the office when I arrive in the morning. In addition to the daily obligations with volleyball (updating statistics and the web site, writing notes, keeping on top of opposing statistics for our coaches), I must also stay on top of the Cougar swimming and diving and golf teams, which are also competing during the fall on a more limited basis.
When I am traveling on the road, it is imperative that I work with opposing SIDs in golf and swimming and diving to receive the results from the events that I cannot be at, either through the fax machine at the hotel or through the email on my laptop computer. If these results fail to come through, it means even more work when I return to the office as well as coaches understandably grumbling about why their sports did not receive any coverage last weekend.
And as you can see, I still have not mentioned the time that I must make to write and edit the Cougar baseball and golf media guides. Those two publications are a combined 152 pages, some of which must be totally rewritten with the information from last season.
With volleyball winding down, one would think that the load of this SID would be lessening and more time would be available for the media guides. Think again. For the first time since 1997, the University of Houston will be hosting the Conference USA Volleyball Tournament at Hofheinz Pavilion. That means I will be coordinating the media activities during the tournament as well as making certain that the needs of the 11 other C-USA SIDs and the various media outlets coming into town are met.
So you can imagine my horror when my computer, which at one time held the entire 24-page C-USA Volleyball Tournament program with photos and logos, completely and totally crashed with no hope of recovery. Once Associate Athletics Director for Communications Chris Burkhalter and our computer experts Donnie and Christian revived me, picked me up off the floor and dusted me off, I had to totally redo the program with the quick help from all the C-USA SIDs as well as the staff here.
(Sidenote here: Let this be a lesson to all computer users out there. Save , save often and save to disks outside of your computer. It will save you money on the Tums, Pepto-Bismol and carpet cleaning).
In addition to all the work above, I must be efficient in my work so that I can spend time with my wife Kristy and our 17-month-old son Tyler at home. Even after six years of marriage, Kristy still wants me to come home every night. And Tyler just wants someone to chase him and be chased by him around the couch in our living room.
Those two people are the most important things in my life and deserve just as much and even more of my attention than a media guide or press release.
Fortunately, the people and the resources here at the University of Houston have made this job easier to manage. Coming from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where the SID Office could not afford a desktop and a laptop computer for all staff members, the University of Houston has been a refreshing change.
And the staff has been beyond belief at the University of Houston SID Office. Working with MacIntosh computers and dealing with new printers, photographers and a Conference office with different reporting rules and formats, Chris Burkhalter and fellow assistant SIDs Rick Poulter, Amy Abramczyk and Sara Swilling as well as secretary Karon Harper have answered stupid question after stupid question after stupid question (some more than once) from me, and yet still seem ready to answer more. However, I figure that I must be reaching some kind of breaking point with one of them.
Fortunately, the tournament program was finished on time and is out of the way. I received a new computer that works like a charm and the inside pages of the baseball media guide are nearly finished with golf up next. It can be hard keeping umpteen balls in the air at the same time, but if you love the work, stay on top of it and make a few diving catches every now and then, you'll make it just fine.