Making the Sports Information jump

Let's also remember that there are widely varying experiences within the SID business.

A former colleague became the SID at a Division III school and was pretty much a one-man department, with help from interns. At the same time, he only had two very small media guides to produce, one game program (football) and he lived a fairly peaceful existence in that regard.

On the other hand, he had to do the pre- and post-game shows on their basketball radio broadcasts as well as the halftime interview. He was also kind of a de facto assistant AD, troubleshooting a lot of minor problems on game days. He didn't work a lot of crazy hours, but he was pretty much on call constantly.

But he was in a nice small town, where the living was very reasonablly priced, and he got his three kids through college free. He called it the best move he ever made.

 

The way to go for many people might be as a communications person for a sports association. This will vary greatly from one association to the next, but that's the path I took for a few years. The last association I worked for had two major, week-long events a year that were put on by the national office. Those events often required me to work from 7 a.m. (earlier on days when the local tv morning show came out) to midnight. The good news is I didn't have to fight traffic going into or leaving the facility each day!

But other than those two weeks, I had an 8 to 5 job that required a few other weekend trips during the year. I wasn't completely chained to a desk, but I wasn't constantly on the road or at events either. Really seemed to be the best of both worlds for me. I also liked the variety of it—working on the website, putting together publications, being the media flak, etc.

 

I mentioned earlier about the SID at a local FCS program who does very little and, from all appearances, has a "gravy train" going. But I also know, as well surely know, numerous SIDS who have no life because they are putting in 24/7 at their jobs. A close friend of mine who is an SID at a D-I school is constantly at work and at all odd hours. And even odder hours than what so many of us deal with as sportswriters. I did assistant SID work when I was going through college, then a little afterwards and I honestly enjoy the sportswriting role much more.

 

"Better hours" these days might be relative.

Any hours are better than no hours, for example.

 

That's not the quote function. See the button at the upper right of each post? Says Quote.

 

"That's not the quote function. See the button at the upper right of each post? Says Quote."

I see it. I know that when I use it, it gives me a bunch of unnecessary crap to edit out when I only want to quote one sentence or so.

A quick copy and paste is preferable to me.

 

And that's why you fail at the quote function. Among the crap you edit out is the attribution of the quote.

It's not that difficult to triple-click a line you want to remove and tap the Delete key. Please leave the rest ... including the computer coding. Little thing called etiquette.

 

Way to derail a thread about a topic several people, not just myself, are interested in, all in the name of arguing about message board etiquette. :

 

To be closer to our hometowns, I left an SID job at a mid-major D1 school to become SID at a junior college. A writer at a local paper asked me, point-blank, why I took a step down. When I explained to him that, with a new baby, we wanted to be closer to grandparents, he understood. At the D1, I had a full-time assistant and we handled 16 sports. At the juco, I was a one-man show with six sports. And the best part of the whole deal: I actually made more at the juco than at the D1.

 

I've worked full-time as a reporter and I once profiled my college's SID (D-II) for the local paper and yeah, the SID gig is definitely as tough if not tougher than working in newspapers. He is a one-man job aside from one guy who helps "when he can," plus a student or two, same deal.

Nuts man. Don't think I'd ever want to do it.