Sports Information Department

[Brookerton]

I was just curious as to what people thought about working for a Sports Information Department. Is the pay, hours, acutal work, etc. generally better/worse than working for a newspaper?
It seems like it wouldn't be a bad gig, especially if you worked for a major D-I school, but I don't know much about the actual job, so that may not be the case.
If there are any previous threads about this topic, please post.

 

[Cadet]

It's like being a beat reporter. Except you have 19 beats.

 

[Boobie Miles]

And you ARE working for the school, so unlike a reporter you can't tell it like it is. And some coaches treat SID's like their personal secretaries, and I couldn't deal with the ash-kissing involved in it.

 

[lone star scribe]

Top guy would get paid decent, by newspaper standards, but staff positions will make you yearn for the big bucks prep writers pull down.

 

[shotglass]

I've often thought it might be an interesting job, Brookerton. And I was rather close to applying for SID at my alma mater a year or two ago before I realized I couldn't really justify the pay cut.

At a D-II or D-III school, the pay, even for the main job, isn't all that great. And if you want to land at a D-I school, understand that there are a lot of kids who go through college training for just that position. That's your competition.

One thing you have to have, and a lot of people don't, is a full understanding of publications and desktop publishing. Producing media guides, game notes, etc., is very big, and you're going to have to handle a lot of things, even the little stuff like who produces the head shots and how you plan the page-by-page flow of a media guide.

 

[Cadet]

One of the most difficult things is that SIDs have the same hours as newspaper sports writers (game nights, then working furiously to publish gamer/stats/notes to the website and send to all media outlets), but at a lot of schools they're also expected to be there for the 8-to-5 like the university employees they are.

Sad thing is at most schools the SIDs only get paid about two-thirds of what the PR people in University Communications make. How that is justified I will never know.

 

[wickedwritah]

At some smaller schools, SIDs also serve as the equivalent of a traveling secretary -- book buses, sometimes drive a van, all in the sake of getting the team moved.

Unless you somehow managed to snare a couple good student ashistants every year -- and the good student ashistants who want to get into sports information will go to a bigger D-I school, in all likelihood -- your life as a small-school SID can be hell.

 

[BYH]

Sad thing is at most schools the SIDs only get paid about two-thirds of what the PR people in University Communications make. How that is justified I will never know.

Yeah, but when the ship hits the fan in the athletic department, who gets to handle the PR fallout? Not highly paid University Communications schmuck.

 

[Canuck Pappy]

I had an interview for a SID job a couple of years ago and the AD said to expect to work 60-70 hours a week in the fall for football.

 

[Claws for Concern]

SID might also have to be the radio/internet voice of the team too. It's all about what is best for the college.