Contact: Drew Sauer, Assistant Sports Information Director, 630-637-5324
(written by Emily Zadny, Student Sports Information Assistant)
Feb. 2, 2017 – North Central College sports information director Clark Teuscher served as a panelist and presenter at the 2017 NCAA Emerging Leaders Seminar on January 26 at the NCAA National Office in Indianapolis.
An annual event, the ELS provides leadership, educational and transitional programming for interns and graduate assistants who are interested in pursuing a career in intercollegiate athletics. This year's event drew an audience of more than 200 attendees, each of whom had to apply to attend the event.
In addition to a Q&A portion of the panel, attendees had the opportunity to pose questions to the presenters. Teuscher was joined by Dawn Ellerbe Crawford, the Associate Athletics Director for Marketing, Branding, and Fan Development at California State University-Northridge (CSUN) and Rob Carolla, the Director of Communications for the Big 12 Conference.
Teuscher also gave a presentation which gave insight on how to learn more about communication and marketing and focused on the way sports information impacts other functional areas of collegiate athletics. He also shared the lessons he's learned which have been keys to success and growth in the industry and the unique opportunities to develop leaders within athletics.
"Every time I go to this event, I tell the organizers that I'll be back as many as times as they'll have me," said Teuscher. "I enjoy it thoroughly and I get to meet some truly talented and motivated individuals."
Teuscher shared his thoughts on a few of the questions from the panel discussion:
How do communication and marketing roles vary by campus and by Division?
"I think the biggest difference between the divisions is at the Division I level, the majority of time is spent managing your relationships with the media who cover your teams, but at Division II and DIII, a lot of times you function as your own media organization. There is actually a lot of crossover between the divisions, more than people think, but that would be the biggest difference."
How does your job impact student-athletes?
"I talk about this a lot. I really think our biggest task as communicators is assigning value to the student-athlete experience. Everything we do reflects the way the college sees the role of athletics in education and how we regard the students who chose to pursue athletic excellence in addition to their academic experience."
What do you think are the biggest misperceptions of the marketing and communications role?
"The biggest misperception is that when you see us at a game or event, that it's the busiest time we have. Especially when it comes to championships and postseason events, a lot of that work is done ahead of time and that is the work no one sees. There is a lot of teamwork and organization that happens before anyone comes in the door that a lot of people may not understand."
A speaker at the ELS for the third straight year, Teuscher also serves as the chair of the College Sports Information Directors of America's (CoSIDA) Continuing Education Committee. He joined North Central's staff in 2008 after six years as the Sports Information Director at Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana.
