People often ask me what it really is that I do for a living.
I try to explain, but they do not seem to understand where I am going when I say that I am a Public Affairs Assistant with the Southern Conference.
For the most part after articulating what the SoCon is to some that do not invest any time into the world of sports, I then have to explain what exactly a Public Affairs Assistant does, ending it usually by saying I work with the media.
This is always followed by: “Oh, so you are a writer,” and to just continue with the ebb and flow of the initial conversation I always yes.
It is true ? obviously, since I am writing this ? that I am indeed a writer, but in the media relations field that I work it is only a microcosm of what we do on a normal day-to-day basis.
All of this is why I have decided to give an insiders view into what working at the SoCon from my perspective is all about.
Trite, but it might better explain why when people talk about working in sports they always refer to the long hours.
This is our story via the life of Brian Hand.
Time Management
If there is one thing that I have learned in my four or five years in the business it is that time management is key in this field because you always have different things intersecting at the same point.
The only difference is that it is even more so in my job as an assistant in the Public Affairs office here at the conference, mainly because unlike many of my other jobs I have to focus on two or more sports at a time.
When I worked in professional baseball and soccer things just focused around the team that were promoting and trying to brand it to the outside world.
In my job at the SoCon I have myriad sports that I am in charge of on the media side and that still is only a little of what we do daily.
A Daily Look
For purposes aforementioned, looking into what happens on a daily basis in the SoCon Public Affairs office is mandatory to understanding what it is that we do yesterday, today and/or in the future.
For my example, I am going to delve into what is taking place on let’s say a Tuesday.
Presently, I am in charge of the media output conference-wise for women’s basketball. This entails collecting all of the game files ? the files that are sent to us by our member institutions after each game ? and making sure that they are correct, balanced (in the scores, etc.) and putting them into our system and then placing them via an online program that we have onto our website so that others can keep track of overall statistics.
On Tuesday’s once this is all collected it is then my job to turn them around and send out everything that has happened so far on the week to the NCAA and their statistics department so they can have them for their records and place them on their site so that the overarching statistics for NCAA Division I are available for all to see.
This is all done while trying to place everything into the SoCon women’s basketball weekly release that goes out on Tuesday.
The release itself is an 18-page document. The release is done in Adobe PageMaker and has a composite schedule of all the games in the conference, how we did against non-conference foes, team schedules and statistics for the conference: overall games and conference games.
The release also has a two-page section, with one page containing the most critical notes throughout the conference over the course of the previous week and team-by-team notes, which are a paragraph and a little more on each team in the league.
The release can not be done without first releasing the women’s basketball Player of the Week, which is a separate one-page press release that articulates to the public why that person had the best week in the league.
Each institution nominates a Player of the Week candidate and then we ? immediate bosses and I ? discuss who we think had the best two or three games on the hardwood out of the 10 nominees.
Once the SoCon women’s basketball Player of the Week is chosen, it is placed on the 18-page full release and everything is finalized and edited.
Once it has been approved by our double-checking system that we employ here at the office, the release is then sent out to all of our different media, all the different coaches within the league, SIDs, and others that have a vested interest in SoCon women’s basketball.
Since the middle of January doing all of this has also coincided with trying to get everything ready for my particular spring sports as well and helping out a little with trying to get ready for our biggest event of the year, which is the SoCon Men’s and Women’s basketball tournament, being held this year in Charleston, SC.
This means sending out all my stuff for softball; preseason teams, schedules, etc., setting up my release shell for that particular sport and for men’s and women’s golf, my other two sports for the spring semester.
Championships
One of the most important things that we do within our conference office is our championships.
For those that do not know or have never really thought about it, championships are the life-blood of the conference office and are done to the best of our ability because most student-athletes never reach the NCAA Championships. Staggering when you think about that note, but it is true, which is why such a concerted effort is undertaken to make the championship experience in every sport an extremely memorable one for the SoCon student-athlete because that is who we truly work for daily.
Championships take place normally during a work week so obviously one has to harness that time management once again and do one’s regular work plus help in getting things going as far as the championship is concerned.
For this purpose, the volleyball championship will be used since the basketball tournament is still a few weeks off.
The volleyball championship was the fourth and final SoCon championship of the fall semester, with the men’s and women’s cross country and the men’s and women’s soccer already taking place. In fact, my colleagues and I intricately tied to the championships were out of town every week at least four days a week for an entire month.
Throw in Appalachian State’s run to the I-AA National Championship and we were out of town for two months straight on a weekend. It did not bother me as I love to travel, but it is mused to show that this job is not for everyone.
For the SoCon Volleyball Championship we were out of town from Wednesday, November 16 through Sunday, November 20.
The tournament was held in Statesboro, GA, a good four hours from our offices here in Spartanburg, SC, and when we arrived at Hanner Fieldhouse, the Eagles arena and the site of the championship, at around 7 p.m. that night we began setting the arena up and getting everything ready for the next morning so we did not have to do it then.
After this was done we finally found our way to dinner around 9:30 p.m. and after we calmed down from the excitement and the trivia at the restaurant we were eating at that night we found our way to bed around 12:30 a.m.
At around 7 a.m. the next morning we began getting ready for the long day ahead.
Once we arrived at the arena on that Thursday morning we began to make sure everything was set up right since the first match was at 10 a.m.
As far as what I did during the games, I had to chart the game and write the game story afterwards, while also sending out the game file after Brooks Keisler, an assistant in the sports information department at Georgia Southern, passed it along to me. I would then send out that particular game story and the game file to all of the interested media and then with a few seconds to spare get back in time from doing this to see the commencement of the next game.
And then the process started all over again. I did this for three times that day.
After the day was over on the volleyball court around 5:30 p.m. we went back to the hotel to put on our suit and tie and leave to go over and set up for the 2005 SoCon Volleyball Banquet.
The banquet ended around 9:30 p.m. and we went to do our own things so we could get ready for an ever longer day on Friday.
Friday started the same way as we arrived the same time, but this time we were preparing to work four straight matches, which we did with all the same things happening from the day before, except this time things ended around 9:00 p.m. at Hanner and by the time I sent everything out to the media and made my way back to the hotel for something to eat it was around 10:30 p.m.
This is just to reiterate an earlier alluded to statement, but after we finished eating I had to leave because I had to post my women’s basketball stories from the school’s onto our website since their season had just kicked off that weekend.
On Saturday we were able to sleep to around 10 a.m. since the semifinals did not start until the afternoon. Once again over those two contests the same things as talked about took place and another nine hour day was put into my hours for the SoCon.
After finishing around 7 p.m. and after I posted the day’s women’s basketball action and UNC Greensboro’s first-round men’s soccer victory in the NCAA Tournament, we drove to Savannah, GA, to watch the Clemson-South Carolina football game because nowhere in Statesboro was showing the game since it was only on pay-per-view except in the Palmetto State. After seeing my beloved Gamecocks choke once again we finally made it back to the hotel in Statesboro around 1:30 p.m. ready to get everything ready for the final the next day.
We arrived around 12:30 p.m. for the championship final on Sunday and watched College of Charleston is third league championship in the last four years.
After finishing my duties on the media relations end around 5 p.m. we began to break things down from the tournament and place them into our rented truck.
After finally, getting everything in by around 6:30 p.m. since it was just me and one other person there doing thusly, we finally left Statesboro and made our trek back to the Upstate of South Carolina.
After arriving around 10:30 or 10:45 p.m. that night, I was off to bed around 12:00 a.m. ready to work again the next day because remember it was a Monday.
The next morning my 7:15 a.m. wake-up call from my cell-phone arrived way too early, but nonetheless it did and I was driving my 30 minutes to work the next morning and arrived at my normal 8:30 a.m.
Once I arrived since the championships were over we put everything in storage that was in the truck and took it back to the company that owned the truck.
The truck back, normalcy once again kicked in, but is there such a thing, particularly since winter sports were starting and some of other sports from fall sports were still in play in the NCAA Championships.
Painting The Picture
All of this was merely a little insight into what takes place within my life here at the SoCon.
It paints a picture of a little of what we do here at the office and helps those that wonder just what a Public Affairs Assistant really does for a living.
It’s a living and I cannot imagine doing anything else.