By Adam Robinson
BANGOR – It might seem odd for someone to choose to make the trek up north to Maine from warm Tennessee on purpose to people from the Pine Tree State
For people from Maine, it might seem odd to hear of someone making the trek up to the Pine Tree State from sunny and warm Tennessee on purpose. That’s just what Husson University’s new Sports Information Director, Kaelyn Angelo, did.
“I just did some job searching and I found this position and thought it was a really good fit,” Angelo said. “I came to Maine to be apart of this program.”
Angelo played two years of soccer at the University of Tennessee before transferring to Manhattan college for her final two years of schooling, graduating in 2015.
“I’m a division one collegiate athlete and I’ve always loved to be around sports,” Angelo said. “I didn’t really want to leave a career around sports. I’ve always wanted to be apart of college athletics.”
Being the director of sports information, you need to have a broad arsenal of abilities to be able to do all the tasks within the job description. Angelo’s background gives her just that.
I graduated in May of 2015 and then I had a summer internship that lasted from June of 2015 to August, which was in California,” Angelo said. “I worked for an advertising agency that produced the Toyota commercials.
“I decided to go back to Tennessee and worked for marketing and promotion for women’s soccer, women’s basketball, football and I did a little bit of media relations, which is sort of like sports information, for men’s basketball.”
You may be asking, what does the SID do? For Angelo, it’s everything from writing press releases to running the social media accounts to even helping committees find new head coaches. Right now, Angelo is apart of a group interviewing for a new men’s soccer coach after Jeff Getler stepped down last month after six seasons at the helm.
For the SID, no two days are alike, or lacking in to-do tasks.
“I was expecting the work load to be difficult,” Angelo said. “But then again I wasn’t, because at Division one schools you have a SID for each sport, and I’m dealing with twenty one sports… I kind of like having a lot of things to do at once because it keeps me busy.
“I never do the same thing every day.”
If you’ve ever been to a sporting event, collegiate or professional, you know that it can be hectic to put, and keep, together. This is also apart of Angelo’s job description.
“Game days are a little tricky,” Angelo said. “I just kind of oversee them and make sure everything gets set up properly. We have to set up the broadcast, the stats, the PA system. I have a great staff.”
During games, Angelo helps with the statistics side of things. Acting as what she calls a “caller,” Angelo will call out a special code to the stat keepers to make sure they don’t miss anything that happens.
Part of her crew comes from the Husson-NESCom student body.
“We definitely have a lot of students,” Angelo said. “This weekend, actually, we will have a couple NESCom students that will be working with some camera work, or writing press releases.”
This past weekend, Husson hosted the NAC men’s basketball conference tournament, with eight teams attending over the weekend.
“For the conference tournament we have eight teams coming, so it’s kind of like my job times eight,” Angelo said. “It’ll be fun, but honestly students can take photos, tweet, use social media, live updates, write releases, film games, it kind of depends on what they want to do.”
Student interaction helps Angelo focus on what her work entails on game days. But that’s not to say she isn’t qualified to take pictures, write game recaps or anything that students help with.
“I majored in communications and my concentration was in broadcasting, so I actually have more of a background in editing and producing and directing,” Angelo said. “I’ve kind of done that for years.”
Her internships prior to being hired at Husson also gave her experience in social media as well as advertising, both components to her new SID job. The variety that comes with being the sports information director is what Angelo loves.
“I feel like with sports information, people think it’s just statistics,” Angelo said. “But for me, it has a holistic feel to it. You have statistics, you have social media, you have a website, you have marketing, photos. There’s a lot of stuff that you can do and there’s not one set thing.”
