What's In A Name?

TigerBlog has mentioned before the fact that he's had nine different titles in his tenure with Princeton Athletics.

Is that a record? 

Perhaps somewhat fascinating is the fact that one of the titles he's never had is that of "sports information director."

For years, decades, that was the only title for people who worked in college athletic communications. Sports Information Director — SID for short. 

Everyone in college athletics knew what the SID did. He or she (but mostly he) kept stats at games, worked to get media placements, produced pregame notes for the media, sent out postgame results, wrote the media guides and updated the record books. The traditional SID was a public relations/media relations specialist.

TigerBlog isn't sure when the first SID was hired and where, though he knows that it primarily was an offshoot of general university communications offices. In fact, it wasn't until Gary Walters in the mid-1990s lobbied the University that Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications became a part of the Department of Athletics.

The national organization of SIDs was established in 1957, when a group split away from the American College Public Relations Association to create its own sports-specific entity. It was to be called "The College Sports Information Directors of America," or, as it's usually known, "CoSIDA."

You might be most familiar with CoSIDA though its longtime sponsorship of the official Academic All-American program, the CoSIDA Academic All-American. 

Actually, beginning this coming year, that Academic All-American program is changing. Instead of needing a 3.2 grade-point average to be eligible, the minimum has been raised to 3.5. 

In the past, each individual school's communications office would nominate its athletes for the various sports, and those athletes would be placed on a district ballot. Voting would then be done by the SIDs in in each district, and the winners would then be announced and placed on a national ballot.

Beginning this year, anyone nominated will automatically be named All-District and advance directly to the national ballot. Depending on the sport, there are limits to how many athletes can be nominated.

TB likes this change. For one thing, he's guessing that a small percentage of those who could were actually voting. Also, it's a real achievement to be nominated, since you need a 3.5 and you need to be a starter or key contributor, and now that achievement will be recognized.

The big question now is whether or not it will be the CoSIDA Academic All-American team for the foreseeable future. 

Because the term "SID" feels so antiquated and a link to days and tasks that no longer apply in a digital, social media/video-driven world, the CoSIDA board is putting up for a vote for the organization's first name change since it formed 65 years ago.

Coming up on Aug. 31, the CoSIDA membership will vote on whether or not to change the name to the "College Sports Communicators."

Do you like it? 

TB isn't sure yet. He's fine with change, and he too agrees that the term "SID" is outdated. To many, it conjures up black-and-white pictures of men in jackets and ties along press rows and press boxes in front of typewriters with paper and pencils and scorebooks.

Of course, many of those in those pictures were pioneers of the profession and very worthy of respect. It's just that those days are long gone.

It wasn't long after TB started at Princeton that the major shift in the profession really began, and that of course was due to the growth of the internet. Now, instead of being a media relations organization, each college athletic communications office is its own media outlet.

If that change hadn't occurred, TB would have left the profession decades ago. The overwhelming majority of words that TB has written for Princeton Athletics has come in this format, something that didn't exist when he started and something he probably couldn't have foreseen.

So is it to be College Sports Communicators? Or is it to remain CoSIDA?

TB loves the idea that the organization is being proactive. He also loves that one of the key reasons for doing this is to help those who do so much to promote these colleges and universities get the respect that they deserve (but haven't always received).

TB will let you know how he votes and how the vote turns out.