Assistant Director for Media Relations

Job Summary

Job Overview

• Coordinates and disseminates information concerning the University Athletics programs.
• Communicates information to local and national media and other groups such as alumni, letter winners, faculty, students and fans.
• Establishes relationships with local and national media in promoting University Athletics.
• Helps to execute the Media Relations Department’s publicity strategy.
• Primary responsibility is to serve as the primary media relations contact for multiple University athletic programs.
• Serve as liaison between the athletic department and media, general public and university community.
• Responsible for developing and executing a publicity strategy for their assigned sports.
• Collaborate closely with local, regional and national media outlets—as well as University's VFL Films staff—to pitch and execute story ideas promoting teams and individual student-athletes and staff members.
• Responsible for the coordination of media availabilities and press conferences for each of their sports.
• Ensure accurate and up-to-date information on their assigned sports is available daily via Internet and social media platforms.
• Manage media relations logistics associated with their teams' respective athletic events.
• Travel with the team and execute their responsibilities at the competition site.
• Mst be willing to work/travel on nights and weekends, and should be available to work home football games when the fall sports schedule allows.
• Responsible for the production of a thorough and up-to-date "game notes" package that is used by broadcasters to prep for the event.
• Assist colleagues at other sports' competition events when their availability allows.

Qualifications Education

• Required Bachelor's degree preferably in journalism, communications, public relations or sports management.

Preferred Education

• Master's degree preferably in journalism, communications, public relations or sports management.

Required Levelel/Type of Experience and/or Years of Experience

• At least one year of previous experience in an NCAA Division I media relations/communications office, professional sports franchise, or comparable work environment.

Preferred Level/Type of Experience and/or Years of Experience

• Preferable to have previous experience as a primary sport contact at the NCAA Division I or professional sports level.

Competencies/Qualifications

• Possess a demonstrated ability for strategic thinking and strong public relations sensibilities.
• Possess strong writing and verbal communications skills.
• In-depth, sport-specific knowledge to serve as an official scorer for Division I collegiate softball.
• Certain technical knowledge is required, including demonstrated experience with Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, SIDEARM and The Automated Scorebook (Stat Crew) and Genius statistical software.
• Broad working knowledge and familiarity with NCAA and Conference rules also is required.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Ability to create compelling and engaging, live social media content.
• Advanced operational knowledge of PC and Apple computers.
• Basic video-editing skills and basic HTML coding ability.