More Than “The Stats Guy?” Sports Information Directors and the Leadership Challenge

Abstract

The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) was formed to elevate the professional standing of sports information directors (SIDs) from technician roles to the management level through strategic communication. This reflects a general trend in public relations, where practitioners often struggle to assume leadership roles. Excellence theory and research on public relations roles assert organizations succeed most when public relations practitioners are management-level employees. This study explores the roles SIDs play in Division III, with a focus on leadership, through interviews with current SIDs and athletic directors in one upper-Midwest conference. Their comments suggest that many SIDs operate exclusively in technical, production-oriented roles and participants were divided on how appropriate and practical it is for SIDs to assume leadership roles. These results indicate SIDs are generally not currently occupying the roles that CoSIDA desires and highlight the challenges the organization faces in attempting to elevate the profession. The results have practical implications for SIDs, who desire a more prominent role, as well as the respect, higher job satisfaction and salaries that typically accompany a managerial role, and suggest that CoSIDA has work to do to achieve its goal. Theoretically, the results bring the practicality of the claims of excellence theory into question by expressing concern over how realistic it is for SIDs to serve at the management level.