(Shadowing Report Written by Haden Yonce)
On Tuesday September 25 at 7:00pm the JMU men’s soccer team faced off against Georgetown. Coming off a big win against UNC a few weeks earlier, the team was on a 19 game winning streak at home. I arrived to the press box at 6 o’clock, where I was met by my classmate Colleen McCain and collegiate athletic director Milla Sue Wisecarver, whom I shadowed for the game. Going in I knew very little about Wisecarver, but soon found out that she was the Sports Information Director (SID) for the game, as well as the Assistant Athletics Communications Director for JMU’s soccer teams, women’s basketball, and women’s lacrosse.
Seeing as I had an hour before the game started, I was able to see how everything got set up. The preparation for the game started with setting up the computers. There was a computer for keeping twitter updates, one for recording player stats for the NCAA, and one for a journalist from a local newspaper who was writing a story on the home winning streak. The next step was getting the list of starters from both teams, which was given to the on field staff, announcers, and was passed around to everyone in the press box so that could help keep an eye out for who took shots, had assists, saves, and of course goals. Wisecraver stayed very busy during the game because her recordings and updates were given to the NCAA at the end of the game. She had her own personal assistant helping her track everything on the two computers which she monitored closely. At the end of the game everything was checked over and matched up with what the refs had recorded on the field. After this verification, key players and coaches where then notified for interviews.
I learned that Sports communication is very fast pace and exciting. For hours before, during, and after the game the SID and stats crew are constantly running around trying to make sure everything runs smoothly and is recorded accurately. I didn’t know how unbiased everyone was when performing these jobs, it is an important aspect of their jobs that they don’t let their emotions effect their accuracy of what happened on the field. Overall, I felt that I had a wonderful experience and was introduced into the life of sports public relations specialist.
