One of the toughest jobs in all of intercollegiate athletics for those involved in an athletic department or a conference office is transitioning between the seasons, or rather from fall to winter to spring sports.
The SoCon is no different and it works diligently to make the transitions smooth.
The summer is usually the lull period for those involved in collegiate athletics, but there still is a plethora of work to be done.
The main being getting oneself acclimated for the upcoming school year whether that be by putting together a media guide or by selling sponsorships to make sure that the SoCon brand is placed in the right light even before the seasons commence.
It is also a time for those in the office to step back and survey the situation within the league. Meetings are formulated to try and strategically place the entity involved in the exact consciousness that it needs to be placed.
This helps to assimilate ideas and formulations for those within the league office to those with a vested interest in the league, whether that be fans or parents of student-athletes or even student-athletes themselves, just what the league is going to be striving for presently and in the future.
Roughly, all of this means that the SoCon always takes a proactive approach into making sure that things run the right way.
This idealism makes the transition into the first semester of each year that much more anticlimactic.
Entering the start of the 2005-06 school year a lot had recently changed in the construction of the league’s office. Geoff Cabe was in the midst of his second stint as the interim commissioner of the league and with the departure of Associate Commissioner Steve Shutt to Wofford to become its new Sports Information Director the league was in flux in another area.
That changed with the hiring of Bryan McGowan, who had most recently been at the Mid-American Conference. McGowan’s arrival also allowed former Assistant Director of Public Affairs Mandi Copeland to move laterally within the office and become the new Director of Media Services for the SoCon.
This all happened around the commencement of the 2005 fall season and once again added another dimension to the already stressful start of the year.
Things worked out, as McGowan soon transitioned himself to the Southern Conference and with the help of Copeland and Senior Associate Commissioner Cabe found his place.
The fall season had its usual ups and downs, but things started to really heat up around the end of October, beginning of November, as the league underwent its fall championship season with four straight weeks of championships.
The championship season went as good or better than expected, but the transitioning between seasons is what made the time period stringent on all involved.
With men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling opening play, time was at a premium for those involved in the success of these particular sports.
The championships needed to be given one’s undivided attention while they were taking place, but any divided second that one had went to making sure that everything was fluid in the winter sports.
By the way, the NCAA I-AA National Football playoffs were included in all of this as well, and with three SoCon schools included amongst the field of 16 once again time as at a premium.
Luckily, once the playoffs were underway championship season had just come to its end and football could be, along with men’s and women’s basketball, given more attention.
Appalachian State won its first national championship in a team sport on December 16 and finally the fall season was over, leaving a little time a week later for the usual week off break for basketball to enjoy the holiday season.
January opened quickly for the league and with the announcement of new Commissioner John Iamarino shortly after the start of the 2006 year things kept flying by in the SoCon.
In fact, it seemed only a day or two later after giving out preseason awards in spring sports that winter sports were entering their championships.
A few days after the first winter championship, which was Indoor Track and Field, the biggest event of the year in the SoCon, the Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships took place in North Charleston, SC, at the North Charleston Coliseum.
The event took about 16 to 18 hours of work a day for six days to make happen and coupled with the normal work load divvied up from spring sports sleep was once again at a premium.
As always, the ball was tipped and everything went off well and the NCAA postseason kicked off, leaving those in the office to work those events for the hierarchy as well.
The cycle still in motion and the transition to spring sports complete fairly soon after the end of the NCAA Women’s Basketball National Championship on April 4 in Boston, things will transition to revolve solely on spring sports.
Once it does, the wheel will keep on rolling and the summer will find its way into the forefront, leaving the SoCon time to rotate the tire and prepare for the next ride or rather the 2006-07 season.