The Assistant Director, Athletic Communications will act as the primary point of contact for assigned sports with the department, conference, and media to respond to inquiries and requests while also generating content based on proactive interactions with all parties. This position will manage content on RiceOwls.com for assigned sports and will support and enhance all sport-specific social media content generated in collaboration with the department’s creative team. In addition, this position will use support software to track statistics during athletic events and oversee support staff at athletic events.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree
- Two years of related experience
- Must be able to correspond professionally both in writing and orally
- Must be available to work nights, weekends, and holidays as team and event schedules requires
- Frequent travel during season
- Must be familiar with MS Office and Adobe Suites
Essential Functions
- Assists in the implementation of and supports program communication efforts, including timely creation and editing of marketing campaigns, websites, blogs, emails, and newsletters
- Assists others in identifying and developing campus news stories
- Reviews upcoming events, seminars, research reports, campus documents, specialized journals, and newsletters for possible leads to news and feature stories
- Assists in content production for applicable university and / or unit websites; promotes news stories to targeted regional, national, and international media
- Coordinates media relations and ensures logistics / preparations are handled for media staff
- Performs all other duties as assigned
Additional Functions
- Point of contact for assigned sports with the department, conference, and media (both school and professional) to respond to inquiries and requests while also generating content based on proactive interactions with the same.
- Produce annual (Fact/Record Book) and weekly (notes) materials to assist various entities in their coverage.
- Primary manager of content on RiceOwls.com for each assigned sport including but not limited to editorial, biographical and specialty pages in addition to rosters, schedules and results as well as photos, and photo galleries as well as the ability to produce photographic and video content when needed.
- Support and enhance all sport-specific social media content generated by the creative team.
- Demonstrate a working knowledge of each sport’s statistics and event flow as well as any software programs used to support each (StatCrew and Genius) and verify for accuracy either as your sole responsibility or managing stats table staff.
- Develop a working knowledge of sport-specific websites (tfrrs.org, swimcloud.com, etc.) as well as the statistics pages on NCAA.com and how the results correlate to each respective team to determine rankings and relevance.
- Utilize said knowledge to create previews or other bullet points and notes to be distributed in order to promote upcoming events or student-athletes.
- Manage photography, selecting images for website bios, recaps and social media which includes properly identifying student-athletes as well as developing a working knowledge of archived photos of former athletes on Box or other storage platforms. Coordinate the yearly updating of athlete headshots for the website.
- Liaison with the conference office, providing competition updates each week as requested as well as submitting nominations for any awards (weekly, season, academic)
- Main contact for annual sport-specific events such as: Rice Invitational (XC, Men’s Tennis), Victor Lopez Classic (T&F), J. Fred Duckett Twilight (T&F) as well as any conference or NCAA championships we host.
- Ideal candidate should be self-motivated, work well on tight deadlines and possess the ability to manage multiple projects at once.
- Perform any other unique sport-specific duties as required when hosting an event.
Preferences
Rice University HR | Benefits: https://knowledgecafe.rice.edu/benefits-overview
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Rice University is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to diversity at all levels. It considers for employment qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, genetic information, disability, or protected veteran status.
Boasting a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Rice University is ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has a 6-to-1 undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio, and a residential college system, which supports students intellectually, emotionally and culturally through social events, intramural sports, student plays, lectures series, courses and student government. Developing close-knit, diverse college communities is a strong campus tradition, which is why Rice is highly ranked for best quality of life and best value among private universities.