SID Poe leaving WVU for OSU

Some of you SID's might want to get the resume ready ...

SID Poe leaving WVU for Ohio State
By Mickey Furfari

MORGANTOWN — Shelly Poe, West Virginia University’s Hall of Fame sports information director, has resigned to accept a newly created position at Ohio State University.
She will leave next week to become director of football communications for the Buckeyes. She has been at WVU for 26 years, the last 19 as full-time SID involving all sports.
“I think this is a great opportunity for me,” Poe said Monday evening. “It’s going to be football only every day of the year, working for the biggest athletic department in America.”
Ohio State, a perennial power in football, plays its home games in a 108,000-seat stadium.
WVU athletic director Ed Pastilong said, “We appreciate her years of service here, and we wish her well at Ohio State. We’re thinking about reorganizing in that area.”
Poe has served in the athletic department since a student from 1981-85. After graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she assumed an assistant’s role and then became the SID in April of 1988.
A year ago the Morgantown native was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual convention in Nashville, Tenn.
“The people at Ohio State have gone out of their way to make it very attractive to me,” Poe said of the job offer. “The athletic director (Gene Smith) has called me so many times I feel I’ve been recruited.
“(Football coach ) Jim Tressel is a wonderful man. His father was a coach and a brother is in coaching. His dad and (former WVU coach) Don Nehlen have been very good friends since both were coaching in Ohio.”
However, Poe emphasized that she has enjoyed her tenure at WVU. “All of the coaches I’ve worked with over the years have been great, and Coach (Rich) Rodriguez is no exception. Coach Nehlen, Coach (Gale) Catlett, Coach (Dale) Ramsburg, Coach (Kittie) Blakemore, Coach (Linda) Burdette and others.”
She also has enjoyed working with the state and national media in all sports. “I don’t wish anything for West Virginia but the best,” she said. “I hope they win every game ’til they play the Buckeyes.
“Ohio State has one of the greatest football programs in the history of the game.”
While she has been involved with athletes and coaches in all sports, Poe noted that her profession has changed today with larger staffs.
Since taking over as full-time SID in 1988, she has publicized 13 bowl teams, seven consensus All-America gridders, 70 all-Big East performers, 45 NFL draft selections, a Rimington Award winner and finalists for the Heisman, Doak Walker, Lombardi, Butkus and Nagurski national awards.
Poe has coordinated numerous NCAA and conference events hosted by WVU. She also has helped at conference and tournament championship games.
A past president of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, she has worked both the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball Final Fours, the Orange Bowl and the Pan-American Games.
Poe was a member of the CoSIDA Board of Directors from 1999-2003. She rewrote and updated the organization’s entire constitution.
She is a former vice-chair of both the radio TV liaison and publication committees for CoSIDA. She has been a contributor to that organization’s 43 award-winning publications. She was a 2001 inductee into WVU’s distinguished Mountain honorary.
A graduate of University High, Poe is an author of four books. She was recognized in last year’s National Merit Scholars nationwide report as one of the program’s outstanding alumni.

 

A sad day for WVU. She is one of the best in the biz and frankly I thought she'd be a lifer at WVU.

OSU just got a great addition.

 

Quoth the Raven: Fuck all y'all </crossthreading>

 

Think of all the grief she saved herself, not having to work with Huggins.

 

Two thoughts:

1. Isn't this a rather long story for a newspaper to run about an SID changing jobs? Is she so well-known there that the public will care that much?

2. What's this mean for Snapp and the other TOSUers?

 

1. (a) No, not if you understand the culture in WVU and what WVU means to the people in that state. It is the only game in town for most of the state and all of these little newspapers live and die on WVU coverage -- no matter how trivial you think it is. (b) Yes, she's been at the school so long and she's been the point person for the most high profile team in the state for so long, she is very well known.

2. My thought is the OSU staff just improved dramatically.

 

Let the record show that, for the first time, zagoshe and I are in total agreement. A couple times I've had to parachute into the world of WVU football to do a national story, she was all class. Got all the players I wanted, got Coach Rod on the phone for a lengthy interview -- a good person who seems very good at her job. I only hope Tressell doesn't drive her crazy.

 

Snapp had already been moved, and I also heard this hire was driven by Tressel

 

Yes, but you have to keep in mind who wrote it.
Mickey Fufari has covered WVU athletics for over 55 years.
It looks like Mick scooped everybody on this story.
Also keep in mind WVU has no pro team. The Mountaineers are to West Virginia what the Steelers are to Pittsburgh. Poe leaving is newsworthy.

As someone else posted on here, I thought Poe would be a WVU lifer as well.

She was very much the professional.

 

First thing that went through my mind, as well.

 

Like others have said, I thought she'd be a lifer at WVU, and definitely OSU's gain. Additionally, it's no surprise if Mickey got the scoop on everyone else on this one.

Interesting that they're thinking of reorganizing the department. Hopefully Michael Fragale gets a shot to run the show -- he's been Shelly's right hand for a long time.