PHOENIX, AZ -- Texas A&M assistant sports information director Chris Harrell was recently named an honorable mention selection for the inaugural SID of the Year Award presented by Swimming World Magazine.
Harrell is in his sixth season as the primary media relations contact for the nationally-ranked Texas A&M women’s swimming and diving team. He also serves as the women’s equestrian contact since the program’s inception into the A&M athletic department in 1999. Harrell served as the media and results coordinator for the 2004 NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships and has received 19 publication awards, including seven “Best in the Nation” honors, over the past five years. The 2004 Texas A&M women’s swimming and diving guide was selected No. 1 in the country and finished second in 2005.
Not many people in the general population of the sports community truly understand the integral part that media relations contacts and sports information directors lay in sports coverage. Swimming World Magazine, however, wishes to change that at least within the swimming community as it introduced the inaugural Swimming World Magazine SID of the Year Award to Northwestern’s Doug Meffley.
SIDs are assigned within each university to interact with any media requests for their respective sports. They tirelessly research small nuggets of information, produce top-flight press releases about anything and everything for their sports and set up interviews with their teams' student-athletes, among a variety of other behind-the-scenes event management and administrative duties.
With this in mind, the staff at Swimming World Magazine took into consideration how quickly different SIDs worked with their numerous requests for interviews and images as well as how well they each promoted their own institutions.
Other SIDs who earned honorable mention for the award based on their incredible efforts on behalf of their respective swimming and diving teams were Travis Feldhaus of Texas, Paul Goldberg of USC, Jeff Keiser of Minnesota, Justin Kischefsky of the United States Naval Academy, Kristie Le of the Atlantic Coast Conference and Jakob Skipper of William & Mary.
