Assistant Director, Athletic Communications

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.

The ideal candidate will be self-motivated, work well on tight deadlines, will demonstrate the ability to manage multiple projects at once, will be available to work athletic events, and will have a general knowledge of and interest in intercollegiate athletics.

Essential 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).

*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 mug shots for the website.
*Liasion 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 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.

*Staff all home events, along with the potential for occasional travel if warranted.
*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.

Education Required: Bachelor’s Degree

Field of Study: Journalism, communications, sports administration, or specifically related field

Experience Required: 2 years

Type of Experience: Experience in a college or university sports information office as a graduate student, intern, or full-time.

Education Preferred: Master’s Degree

Skills Preferred: - A strong knowledge of sports and a passion for promoting college student-athletes. Excellent journalistic writing and communication abilities with a working knowledge of Associated Press style guidelines. Demonstrated abilities in proofreading. Experience/knowledge with website content systems (Sidearm), Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, Premiere). Working knowledge of digital photography and videography preferred.

Rice University is an Equal Opportunity Employer with commitment to diversity at all levels, and 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.

Current Rice University COVID policies, which include vaccination, face mask, testing, gatherings, occupancy limits, and travel policies can be found here: https://coronavirus.rice.edu/policies