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COSIDA CAPITAL ONE CONTINUING EDUCATION WEBINAR

October 23, 2018

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Capital One continuing education webinar series. Our Teachable Tuesdays continue today with best practices for managing crossover seasons. Thank you for joining us. My name is Meghan O'Brien. I'm the vice chair of the continuing education committee, and before we begin, I'd like to say a quick thank you to two of our corporate partners, Capital One and ASAP Sports.

Capital One is the presenting sponsor of our continuing ed and professional development series, and ASAP Sports provides the full transcripts of each monthly webinar. So thank you to both of those companies for helping us out.

As a reminder, the webinar and ASAP Sports transcripts will be posted later today on CoSIDAConnect, which is our membership's online community, so please look for the links in the connect resource library off the main page of CoSIDA.com.

During the webinar today, you can ask your questions live to the presenters, if you just use the chat box to the right of your screen. You'll find the portal where you can type a question and it'll come right to me and I will pass that along to our presenters. We have Cyrill Parham from Wesley College. He's the director of sports information; Emily Dorko, associate athletic director for external relations at Adelphi; and Ryan Sakamoto, who is the assistant commissioner for communications at the Patriot League.

Thank you all for being with me today. I'm really excited because this is a huge topic for everyone, trying to navigate the craziness of crossover season. We're approaching that right now, and then obviously again in this spring.

I think we should talk about organization to start, so how do you stay organized with you've got your photo shoots coming up, you've got deadlines to submit rosters. How do you find yourself staying organized? Emily, let's start with you.

EMILY DORKO: Sure. So I think for my style specifically, I'm the director and then I have two full-time assistants and then one graduate assistant. I really rely a lot on the preparation we do in the fall to kind of get us to this crossover season, so that means really making sure that everyone understands what their responsibilities are for each one of their primary sports, and then we try to host biweekly meetings to kind of go through the schedule of an entire month. The board behind me literally has any event that we have surrounding a game, so we all get in the same room and we kind of dissect who needs to do what, who needs what from someone. So that way when we get to the day of the event, things run smooth.

CYRILL PARHAM: I'm more of a one-man shop. I do have an assistant, but he can only do as much as he can because he has another job on top of the responsibilities he has with me, so we try to delegate as much as possible in terms of training and responsibilities with coaches, and when other administrators ask for things, I try to make sure I write down a list of things that needs to get done and then prioritize. I want to make sure that the more pertinent things like if our football team needs something for the playoffs or something like that, that they obviously need that pretty quick compared to let's say basketball needs something for a game that's in a couple months or anything like that. You want to make sure you prioritize your time, write down the things that need to get done and then communicate with the coaches in saying want to make sure that I have these priorities, I have these things that need to get done before I get to the end. Please don't get mad if it's not done very quickly, ASAP, but we do the best we can with what we've got.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: It's important to communicate with the coaches really effectively. Ryan, surely you can agree; from the conference level you're dealing with not only the coaches but the SIDs specifically, so how do you work with them to make sure they're on top of their game?

RYAN SAKAMOTO: Yeah, sure, and just kind of tapping off what Cyrill just said, just kind of making lists and making sure that myself and then I have three other people working for me here in the communication office at the Patriot League. So making sure that we're in constant communication with the SIDs as we come up on the end of the fall seasons in regards to tiebreakers, different rosters and roster files that we need for championships, getting releases out and working with our championship people here at the office. And then certainly being on top of nominations for end of the year awards or weekly awards and all that kind of thing.

You know, so just kind of making sure that throughout the season that we're in consistent contact with the SIDs, making sure we're not just coming to those guys when we need things, and trying to give them a little bit of lead time, as well, when we need things on our end. I spent nine years at a school, as well. I know this time of year on campus is pretty wild. I think if you send somebody an email, the expectation is not necessarily that you're going to get an answer back in five to ten minutes. If somebody is in a practice or somebody is at a different game, knowing that people are going to get to things when they can and just to make sure that you're putting them in a position to get you what you need to you can help them.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Let's talk about managing staff a little bit because Cyrill had touched on an interesting point where it's basically you and a part-time assistant and Emily has got two or three with you, and then Ryan, you've got three, right, so how do you assign staff roles during this time of year and make sure you emphasize the importance of people staying on top of their work?

CYRILL PARHAM: I'll start it off. My situation might be a little unfortunate in that I only have as many -- one part-time guy that has another job and has other responsibilities. I try to delegate as much as I can to him in terms of training him and teaching him things that need to get done because there are things that I can't really get to and there's not enough time in the day to get things done. It's just all about training and teaching up your interns, teaching up your assistants to -- your responsibilities. He might not be as strong in creating graphics or creating documents like I am or anything like that, so you want to play to the strengths. Maybe he's good at writing the releases, he can get to it after his work is done, and I can focus on something else after a game, making sure that the stats were sent out correctly, if there are any issues with sending out files or issues in the box score that I can take care of that. Once again, if the coach reaches out to me about something that needs to get done that's not really a priority or pertinent at the time, then we work it out to see what needs to get done.

EMILY DORKO: Kind of playing off what Cyrill was saying, definitely playing to the strengths of each one of your staff members if you have -- I'm fortunate we have a pretty strong student worker base, so we constantly have kids coming into the office, kind of doing the menial work, the uploading the schedules and making sure they're on a conference website correctly, double checking that everything kind of looks the same, putting rosters together, uploading head shots. So I think if you're able to work kind of from the top down and delegate tasks, it's only going to make the transition that much smoother.

RYAN SAKAMOTO: And I think from the conference side, it's just we have a split of sports, so I'll work with football and field hockey in the fall and men's basketball in the wintertime. Our next person in the office has volleyball, men's soccer and then women's basketball, and then we have a full-time intern who's brand new to sports information and communications, and we have another person who works remotely. So for myself with the staff that we have, it's just making sure that you're always accessible. During the week, Monday through Friday, we're in the office, so you can kind of sit around and talk about things and we'll meet twice a week just to make sure that whether it's getting nomination forms out to SIDs and coaches that we're staying on top of those types of things. But it's pretty much just constant communication. We all have different tasks, and by this point in the year, people have a good idea of what the week to week is, so now you're kind of just tossing another ball in terms of what you're juggling. It's making sure that you're taking care of those things first and keeping an eye on the winter sports season and what our responsibilities are for the basketballs and the swimming and divings and things like that.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: So what happens when you've got a fall team that is just outstanding and makes it to the NCAA tournament and the person that is covering that team is also your men or women's basketball contact? How do you delegate in that capacity?

RYAN SAKAMOTO: The best you can. I mean, I think we're realistic in the sense that you can only be in one place at a time. I think the beautiful thing now at this point opposed to when I just got started out is that anywhere you go you can have internet, and all of our games are streamed online so you can kind of keep track of especially early season basketball and whether we're writing recaps or getting notes or updated stats out to our coaches and our SIDs. Those things are possible anywhere. But I think we place a priority on those postseason events and making sure that we're there for our teams and coaches that are in the NCAA tournaments. But it does get difficult. I mean, there's only 24 hours in a day, and sometimes you might get a little bit less sleep than you would otherwise. I think it's also a point of being able to delegate to somebody if you're at an event, just being able to shoot a text to say, hey, can you get this graphic up for our basketball scoreboard tonight or something like that.

CYRILL PARHAM: One of the things I like to do, especially because historically our football team goes far into the playoffs, is to make sure, like I said, to train your direct reports. Especially this crossover season with Genius kind of taking over as the primary basketball stats for many schools, it's important that we've got to get that practice time so we can be familiar for when we get our first home game that there's no glitches, there's no issues with running stats because I mean, even though there's a lot of graphics and things like that that need to get done, the most important part of being a one-man shop like I am is to make sure that game day is staffed properly and trained properly.

There's a lot of different training sessions that I've been trying to work towards, especially because scrimmages, a lot of scrimmages we're having, both on our men's side and the women's side, so you want to get that practice and then if you're not able to make the game because football or somebody else is deep into the playoffs, then the wheels keep turning and then they can cover the things that you're not able to make.

EMILY DORKO: For us here, I'm sure when everyone gets back in the fall and gets gearing up for preseason, I try to come up with the best graphic package I can, but I also try to keep in mind that we need to make something that's maintainable and sustainable as we transfer into this crossover period. I don't need the bells and whistles on just a basic game day graphic that's going on an Instagram story. So we try to make it pretty cut and dry so that way if my assistant is on the road traveling with soccer, I'm able to just do all the basketball ones so she doesn't have to worry about them. That's one of the beauties of PhotoShop and templating. Right from the get-go, as soon as we get back, I try to put something together so that way we can use it throughout the entire year and everything has a consistent feel. Of course we get excited when we learn a new tip or a trick to try and incorporate it in a small dose before we get crazy and change an entire concept that we have, so I think that's something that we kind of try to implement here, but it's worthwhile.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: We have a question from the audience, and I think this is actually a really good segue. The question are what are some best practices for working with our colleagues at other schools? We're all dealing with crossover season, and it can be frustrating waiting on information from another school with lack of communication.

CYRILL PARHAM: From my experience, actually this Friday we have a Hall of Fame ceremony and a volleyball game going on at the same time. I want to -- I've reached out to -- well, I've talked to our volleyball coach already because I'm usual the primary volleyball statistician but I can't make it because I've got to be at the Hall of Fame ceremony. I've trained my assistant to do volleyball stats, but he's not really done it by himself. So I've communicated with the coaches from the other team and the SID that if there's any issues in the box score, please be patient. It's his first time doing it by himself, and with kind of a rookie inputer, so it's going to be -- might be a little tough, a little challenging. But I believe that he can get through it, and there will be backup bench stats in case there are any issues with a box score that he creates. So it's all about communicating early and even often, even the day of the game, to make sure that, hey, this is what's going on, I want to double check to make sure what's the game plan for this game, and you're welcome to get the stats after the game and any information you need after the game.

RYAN SAKAMOTO: I think that's an excellent point. Certainly at the school level, and you see it a lot of times here at the conference level. I think sometimes a lot of those issues can be solved early by just picking up the phone early in the week and letting people know. Obviously there are some things that you can't anticipate with your schedule, but a lot of different things when you've got this event and have to jump to another one right after. Things aren't necessarily going to get done as quick as possible. But knowing on the other end, especially from an SID perspective, that this is when you're going to be expecting something, sometimes not knowing when you have something coming up and you're holding up your Saturday or Sunday waiting on somebody to send you a game file, that's kind of the worst part.

If you can let somebody know a little bit earlier, hey, we have somebody that's inexperienced doing this, we're going to get you correct stats as quickly as possible, just bear with us because we have X, Y and Z going on on campus, I've found that people are a little more understanding, especially if you're able to talk things out with somebody who I know when I was a young SID we certainly had those types of issues at the school where I was. If somebody can provide some guidance, I think there's some really smart SIDs who have been very resourceful in their careers out there who can in real time kind of give you some best practice usage that you can kind of help alleviate those situations.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: I agree. I think it's best to be up front. I think sometimes we try to solve the issues we're having internally and keep them internal. They're our problem we feel like and we have to deal with it, but not communicating effectively with the opposing SID is when they start to get frustrated. So at least if you can say ahead of time, listen, I may have a family issue, I'm trying to schedule around that, please bear with me, and I think that there are so many people around that we forget we can tap into, other resources. There are tons of SID groups in our communities that maybe their teams didn't do so well in the postseason and they have a little bit of time that they can spare to pitch in.

CYRILL PARHAM: Yeah, one of the things that I appreciate is that there are a good amount of schools that are pretty close by to us. We have Delaware State that's in the same town as us, so whenever he's in -- Dennis Jones at Delaware State is in a pinch, he can ask me to help out if need be or my assistant, and then he can do the same thing likewise. I also had an intern that's kind of stuck around the area that's graduated from a different institution actually, but he has experience with -- even during crossover season for spring, he has experience doing baseball, softball and lacrosse, so I'm definitely going to utilize him in case of basketball making it far in the playoffs. There's a February baseball game with hopefully no snow, but he can step in if need be to stat the game and all the game operations and that aspect.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: That's great. We don't ever want to think of the worst-case scenario, but it's helpful when we do and plan ahead, and if it doesn't work out, it's like, okay, we've got our contingency plan in place.

Anybody want to add anything else to that portion of it? So in terms of scheduling, I want to touch on something that I don't think we do enough. So not that a 17-hour day is anything to brag about, but it's unavoidable sometimes. How do you make time to take care of yourself and also keep an eye on the people that work were you? We don't want them to burn out, either, so what are some tips that we can share with the membership to -- it's okay to walk away for five minutes.

EMILY DORKO: I'll start this one. I think it's important that the coaches and the support staffs in your departments are kind of almost aware of what you do. That doesn't mean write a list, put a memo in their mailbox and say these are all the things I'm taking care of this week, but at least if they understand the gist if you're planning promos and scheduling game day and having to deal with a webcast and having to deal with a conference championship that's not on your site, just so they kind of realize what you've got going on, so if you're there until 10:30 at night on a Tuesday and you don't come in until 11:00 on Wednesday, it's not that they need an explanation, but they probably would get it, right, like they understand, oh -- like for me, when I have to work on a Sunday and I don't come in until later on a Monday, it's probably because I'm going grocery shopping because normally that's my Sunday task.

But it's better that we communicate and educate the people that we work around so that -- because for the most part we understand our coaches' schedules, right, they're going to lift, they're going to practice, they've got study hall, they've got film. So in turn, if we just kind of reciprocate and let them know, hey, I've got this going on, if you need to get a hold of me I'll be accessible, but I'm probably going to take the morning. Like Ryan was saying before, communication is the most important thing, and it's honestly one of the easiest things to do.

RYAN SAKAMOTO: I think it's important to know that while everybody in the athletic department or at a league office, everybody works super hard. Everybody has different jobs. And the times that you need to be doing those jobs are not necessarily always created equal. Yeah, to Emily's point, if you're up waiting for basketball results so you can get stats out until midnight, showing up at 10:00, 10:30 doesn't seem like that big of a deal. When I first got started I worked with a boss who had a 12-hour rule in place, so if we were at the arena until midnight, he would yell at us if he saw us in the office before noon. Sometimes that's not realistic. But it's kind of the thought that counts, and I know as somebody who's certainly worked for my fair share of people, knowing that as a subordinate is much appreciated, and I think kind of keeps you from burning out earlier in the year so you can at least make it to that Memorial Day weekend.

CYRILL PARHAM: I went to my first CoSIDA I think it was two years ago now, and I kind of took a tip from Greg Goings over at Bowie State in a seminar. He said, work-life balance, he says, if I'm in the office or in the office until 11:00 at night I'm not going to show up until 11:00 the next day, and if somebody gets mad about it, then obviously probably not the best idea to get -- confront somebody about it, but you've got to get a little bit of work-life balance. Got to get a little bit of sleep, especially with our busy schedules nights and weekends. It's important to have time for yourself, making sure that you meal plan, plan ahead with meals. If you're going to stay late, don't really eat fast food. I try my best to do that. I've actually done a little bit better job than previous times to not east fast food, and if I'm out late, then I can prepare for that. Actually I've talked to our athletic trainers a little bit in terms of helping prepare myself in terms of -- if I'm out late, I've got a meal at home.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: It's hard trying to balance all of it, and sometimes we've got bosses and coaches that totally, totally get it. Other times we're not as fortunate. How do you have that conversation maybe, and maybe it's somebody that just doesn't know, or she, excuse me, they, know their sport and know Xs and Os but don't really understand the behind the scenes work. How do you have that conversation, especially when everybody wants the attention at the same time and volleyball and basketball are just colliding?

EMILY DORKO: I did something new for the first time at the end of last year. I kind of had wrap-up meetings with each one of my coaches, whether or not I was their primary SID or not, in the director role I think it's important to kind of have open lines of communications even with the sports that you're not the primary responsibility. Kind of to go over what their expectations were, if they were met, maybe shed some light on a few things that had come up. But I think that almost set the level of like comfortability, like okay, she's here, she's looking out for my sport, even though she's not my primary SID, but in the same breath I was able to then take any feedback or criticism that they had and work with my staff directly and say, okay, here's an issue we had with this sport, but maybe we can try finding a solution and doing something different for the following year.

Yes, it took a little bit of time, and obviously the summer our coaches become -- they ghost us always, but if you just schedule and meet with them as soon as possible before we get into the thick of the summer, that way everything is still kind of fresh.

CYRILL PARHAM: I'd say the same thing Emily did, when I first took over, I sat down with all the coaches, hey, I want to have a wrap-up meeting with you guys to go over what your expectations are and what the realistic scenarios can be in terms of getting things done that you require. Obviously it's all about what your constituents want. That's the campus, alumni, student-athletes. You want to do the best you can, but you've got to be realistic in terms of time, resources and making that clear. Please don't call me at midnight. I want a little bit of sleep. It's all about communicating and being up front with your coaches and other administrators. If the administrators didn't get it, then maybe you have to kind of step over their head, go to HR, explain your situation and just battle for yourself. You've got to stand up for yourself. It might not be easy. It might not be the best thing to do at the time, but I feel like in the long run you've got to look out for what's best for you, and if that place doesn't do it, you've got to find somewhere else.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: We've got a question from the audience. Emily, this one is directed for you. I love the idea of keeping communication open, even if you aren't the direct contact with that coach, but how do you walk a fine line with your assistants to not seem overbearing or not trusting them to handle the responsibility as a primary contact?

EMILY DORKO: Absolutely, and I think I'm in a situation where I have a relatively young staff. I've only been here two years, and one is a grad assistant and the other is a full-time assistant and the other one deals with marketing and special events specifically, but it almost becomes -- it is a fine line, and you want to show that you appreciate all of the work that they do, and I think I try to do a good job of letting them know that I appreciate everything that they're doing and that they shouldn't be afraid to ask for help, and when it comes to stats, they shouldn't be nervous or if they mess up, it's stats. That's what we have videos for, that's what we can go back and change. We have 48-hour rules and whatnot. So it is a fine line, but I think if they want to grow -- for my younger staff, if they want to grow professionally in this industry, they have to almost be able to take the criticism, and I think that's true in any industry that you go into. You need to be able to kind of get that feedback and take it for what it's worth, and obviously always present things as -- it's not personal, it's just this is what the coach is expecting and how about we try it this way or if you would feel more comfortable me sitting with you and the coach and kind of talking things out, then that's also a route to find a solution.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Ryan, from the conference standpoint, how do you measure your patience with SIDs in the crossover season but maybe that are just not meeting deadlines efficiently? How do you try to toe that line with them? How do we express how important it is to get the information to the conference office in a timely manner?

RYAN SAKAMOTO: That's an excellent question. I think I tend to patient, and I've been lucky enough to work on both sides of the fence, so I certainly understand when things go wrong or that are out of the control of people.

But I think the biggest thing is that there are a lot of things that we can't do from the conference level until we get what we need from our member schools. You know, so again, it's the same kind of deal. It's just whether it's picking up the phone or shooting somebody a text, you know, and part of it is that what we are providing is an opportunity for schools to be able to promote their student athletes.

I think the more delay, while maybe my bosses here might not be excited that our all-league team isn't announced until like 3:00 in the afternoon or something as opposed to like 11:00 or noon and I'm sure some coaches and some social media coordinators aren't thrilled about it, it's just a matter of having that opening or that kind of open communication policy, where again, if you know you're going to be late with something, certainly let us know so we can change our plans.

And I think just in being here, I think the one thing that I've learned, and this is my third -- going on my third year at the conference office, is that setting kind of a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour plan of how you want things to be unveiled is not always realistic. But you know, there are going to be those types of issues.

So again, we try to give people as much time as possible on the front end and try to push things back so we're setting our deadlines maybe a day before we actually need things just so we can create some extra leeway for people.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Well, let's throw this to the audience. Are there any other questions out there that our panelists can answer and help you navigate the crossover season? Do our panelists want to add anything that maybe we haven't touched on?

CYRILL PARHAM: Communication is key.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: It is, and why do we struggle with that as communicators from time to time? That's a million dollar question, isn't it?

CYRILL PARHAM: Hopefully it's rhetorical, but sometimes it's not easy to communicate what expectations are and what the real situation is. You've got to communicate and prepare for the best, prepare for the worst.

RYAN SAKAMOTO: Certainly you kind of get -- sometimes you get caught in the flow of work, and you sit down at your desk at whatever time and the next thing you know you pick your head up and it's like 6:30 or something like that. You know, certainly understand it. But yeah, it's a matter of just trying to split your day up as much as possible, and yeah, if you need to go take a walk or something like that just to clear your head, I think sometimes that can be the most important like 15 minutes of the day.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Absolutely, right, try not to eat lunch at your desk.

EMILY DORKO: I was just going to say that.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: Okay, so there's one more question out there. So in terms of staffing or support staff, graduate assistants, full-time assistants, whatever the case is, how do you prepare them mentally almost for the time, especially if they're younger and maybe in their first or second year and don't understand that -- no matter how organized you are, right, it's a crazy time of year and things just kind of happen. How do you kind of prepare that younger staff? What can we throw to some of our membership on how to not lose your cool?

CYRILL PARHAM: You've got to build them up. You've got to build up their confidence, and if they're not experienced with something, you want to make sure that they have -- you can kind of oversee that. You can have a training session with you there and then just say, hey, we can do all the training we can, but if in real time, you've got to think on your toes, be flexible. Don't take anything too personal, don't take it too seriously. Do the best you can as well as you can, and if you make a mistake, don't beat yourself up about it, move on to the next thing and don't fret on the small things. You want to make sure that you get through it. Mistakes are going to happen, and you just want to work your way through it.

EMILY DORKO: Definitely a lot of positive reinforcement, especially for the younger staffs, and kind of getting them to get over that mental hump of wanting to be independent, and I don't want to ask a question. It's like, I still ask questions every day, and I'm in a director position. Getting them to kind of realize that mistakes are going to be made. They're inevitable. We're not perfect. And kind of let them know that the things they are doing right that they're doing them right and kind of harping on that and helping them if you have the time obviously with this crazy crossover, but just kind of helping them through anything that they might have questions about.

RYAN SAKAMOTO: Yeah, I think it's just staying patient and making sure, especially when they're younger employees that they know that you're always there to have their back. You're their safety net in the sense that if they get an angry phone call about somebody not being selected the player of the week or something, you know, that you can be there for them and help them wade through some of those difficult answers and some of that type of reasoning.

And then again, yeah, just to Emily's point that everybody is going to make mistakes, and to never expect something more from somebody who's working for you than you would expect from yourself.

MEGHAN O'BRIEN: That's a great piece of advice. Absolutely. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining me today. I'd like to thank Cyrill, Emily and Ryan for all this information. I hope everybody got some good stuff out of it, and thank you to our corporate partners, Capital One and ASAP Sports for their continuing support of our professional development series.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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