By Mikael DeSanto
Sports Assignment Editor
At St. Bonaventure University, there is a section of athletics called the Sports Information Department, a group of people that oversee various aspects of the day-to-day operations of the school’s athletic programs.
Scott Eddy, the assistant sports information director, explained exactly what the department does.
“Basically we are in charge of, the way I put it, telling the story of St. Bonaventure athletics,” Eddy said. “We are directly promoting all of our sports, which we now have 16 programs with the addition of track this year, and everything that comes with that: promoting all of their events, getting all of their stats and recaps, everything online about all of their games, making sure all of their bio pages are up to date, the schedules are up there. Anything that has to do with dealing with the dissemination of information about any of our sports programs comes under the umbrella of our office.”
Eddy said the department also deals with those who want to speak with any of the players or coaches.
“We are also the direct media liaisons, so if anybody needs to do interview requests or anything like that, that comes through our office as well,” Eddy said.
Each member of the department has different sports that they oversee. Eddy works with cross country and track, golf, women’s soccer, baseball and women’s basketball. Ryan McDonough, though supervised by Eddy, works with both tennis teams, both swimming and diving teams, men’s soccer and softball. Steve Mest deals exclusively with men’s basketball, while Asa Johnson oversees women’s lacrosse and video operations.
Eddy said the department, with the sports split up amongst the staff, has its hands in many parts of the athletics operation.
“Obviously it starts at the beginning of the season, where everything is updated,” Eddy said. “So, all in one shot, we have to update the schedule, the roster changes and all that stuff, and then once you get into the season, leading up to events we are doing previews, we’re putting out stuff on social media, graphics on Instagram and making sure if they can’t attend the event, they know all the coverage links so they can find the live stream and the live stats.”
Eddy also said that the department has a role not only outside the games, but during them as well.
“At the games, if we are at home, we are in charge of keeping the stats for all of our events,” Eddy said. “Also, sending those out to the other schools that we play, the Atlantic 10 [and] the NCAA, and then we also do video recaps using the highlights we usually have from the stream, we have to write a traditional recap as well. We are also in charge of updating social media, so not only the main Twitter account or the main Instagram account, but we are also in charge of all the individual sport Twitters. I would say 85 percent of what you see on those is coming from our office.”
Mest, the associate athletic director for external relations, explained the workings of the department outside of team information regulation and what his job entails.
“I’ve got sports information staff that reports to me, but so does the external team that is made up of the SID office, it’s really communications office, marketing, ticket sales, fundraising video production and corporate sales,” Mest said. “But I’m also the SID for the men’s basketball program, so kind of usual, it’s not the typical set up that you find in a lot of schools, but it’s a hybrid model that kind of works well here for us.”
Mest said that the department works so well because of the people working there.
“The fact we have got talented people in positions of strength for them, put them in places they do well and things they are experienced in,” Mest said.
“For example, Scott, for social media, that is his passion and that is what he likes to work on, and we have given him carte blanche (total freedom) with all of our social media.”
McDonough, the sports information department assistant/digital media specialist and recent graduate of the university, said the office has changed since he was an intern there starting in 2012.
“Every single year we have just been taking small steps keeping with the general trends,” McDonough said. “They were doing some video when I first started, then two years later they had a person who was doing video here full-time, and that has just kept growing. Even in the months in between graduation and me starting this year, we added two new video components to our office with the new video board [in the Reilly Center] and the web streaming.”
But Mest said all of their work is about one thing.
“The best part of my job is working with the students,” Mest said. “I was out of the SID job; I was just doing external for about six years. I really missed it; I missed the interaction with the players and being on the road with them.”
desantmj13@bonaventure.edu
