by: Chelsea Perkins
I had the opportunity to job shadow Kevin Warner, the Associate Director for Athletic Communications at James Madison University, on Sunday October 28, 2012 at the men’s exhibition basketball game versus Philadelphia. It was my first basketball game I’ve ever attended –both as an observer of “behind the scenes” and as a student in the stands. At times it was difficult for me to observe Warner because I was distracted by the heat of the game!
I arrived at the Convocation Center around 1PM, and the game commenced at 2PM. Kevin Warner was already there, and his staff was completely set up. There was a long table that seated about a dozen men in business attire or collard shirts with walky-talkies, laptops, stats sheets, ear phones on, microphone headsets, and more. They appeared well-prepared and focused. Warner advised me and the other observers to sit in the row directly behind the staff in order to observe their actions. Because I didn’t have much knowledge of what exactly they were doing throughout the entire game, I had to guess what they were doing until I asked questions at the end. It would’ve been much more beneficial for me if I could have asked questions along the way, understood their responsibilities before the game began. I didn’t want to step on Warner’s toes, so I just sat back and observed like I was required to do.
Throughout each quarter, Warner and his staff handed out stat sheets to the rest of the staff sitting at the table. There was a man with a microphone on his head that served as the announcer. He declared play calls as well as score updates and player information to the people in the stands. Next to him was a man controlling the television broadcast of the game. Also at the table, I learned that the staff takes phone calls from media, calculate statistics, and control the scoreboard.
Warner was responsible for managing an array of tasks –one being controlling social media. He updated Twitter and Facebook statuses via Hootesuite and was able to access what was being said about the game/JMU sports by followers. He used these social media sites to update followers about the game, the team, and JMU sports in general.
Right after the game, he walked immediately to a man on the other team and shook hands with him. The man appeared to be from the communications department for Philadelphia. This was a nice gesture as a PR professional. After he talked to this man, he went to a post-game press conference.
Aside from being able to watch an exciting college sports game, I found this side of public relations to be rather bland. I think most of my dissatisfaction with the job was because of Kevin Warner himself. Perhaps he was extremely busy, of which I’m sure he was, but for the most part it was clear that Kevin did not want to talk to us. In fact, I felt so
mewhat offended that Kevin Warner seemed so uninterested in helping us understand what he does professionally. We are future public relations professionals and may even fill a role similar to his one day, and the fact that he didn’t seem excited to tell us all about it said a lot about him and how he may feel about his job. It was almost like he was trying to avoid us. For a professional in the field of public relations, he didn’t do a very good job –considering eve
ryone who I was there with was annoyed by him and we, as students (not observers), are a major constituent. This is just my opinion though. Overall, this experience showed me a lot about the specific tasks of sports communications director and it showed me what I do and do not want to do with my degree.
