Cheryl Broom (00:00.11)
Hi, welcome to Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of Graduate Communications. One of the things that I've missed the most during the pandemic was watching my older sons' competitive soccer tournaments. And now that we've re-emerged from the dark days of the pandemic.

I'm able to catch his games. He's playing tournaments again. And I'm back to being a soccer mom on the sidelines, which has been a lot of fun cheering him on and cheering his team on as they play throughout the state of California. And that really made me reflect on the importance that sports play in our lives, in particular in the lives of college students. I wanted to have a discussion and a conversation with someone who could give us advice on how.

we can better promote our athletics programs and also how we can better serve our student athletes. So I invited an old friend and colleague, Steve Johnson, onto this podcast and he gives some great advice on why athletic programs are often considered to be the front door of college institutions, the role athletes play on college campuses, and how we can better support student athletes.

Steve is in his sixth year as Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations at Dixie State after serving nearly nine years as the institution's director of public relations, marketing, publications, trademark, and licensing. Steve also oversees the institution's collegiate licensing program. He has amazing experience throughout his career serving as sports information directors, being a media relations and game management.

professional, being the director of press operations, and just doing some really great things in the collegiate athletics realm. It was a great conversation and I learned a lot and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it as well. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Cheryl. Thanks for having me on.

Cheryl Broom (02:15.906)
Well, I'm really excited to talk to you because, well, first your your university is really unique, the way that you're set up, but also your role is really special as well. And you do so much with student athletes. And those of us that work at community colleges, some have great athletic programs, some have programs in development, some have no programs. So I thought our listeners would learn a lot from your experience and how you've built up your program. And I thought we'd start out by having you describe.

your university and kind of the journey that it's been through over the last couple of years. Our university started out in 1911 as is a state college set up by the Church of Jesus Christ Larry Saints. was taken over by the the state in the 1930s and it was a a community college, junior college up until 2000 when the university started granting four-year degree programs. And then we became a state college and then

In 2006, we left the NJCAA junior college ranks and began our NCA journey at the NCA Division II level. Basically, from there, we started granting more and more four-year programs while still holding on to our community college mission. We never really abandoned that community college mission. We saw ourselves as an open enrollment institution serving the needs of of the southern portion of the of the state of Utah. We currently

Offer, I think, close to a hundred baccalaureate programs now, as well as keeping our community college two-year associate degree programs. And we also started granting master's degree programs last couple of years. wonderful. I didn't know you were doing master degrees too. Well, you and I met at NCMPR many, many years ago. You were working for a community college, and I remember you going through this transition, and it's amazing to hear that now there's a

hundred bachelor's degrees. That's incredible. It is incredible. And our school's currently in transition to becoming more of a polytechnic educational mission now. Basically we're we're looking at being one of the two polytechnic type universities west of the Mississippi, obviously the other one being Cal Poly and San Luis Obispo. Wow, wonderful. We're in the process of transitioning to that mission. And during this entire transition, your role at the college changed as well.

Cheryl Broom (04:41.074)
yes. When I came on board here at Dixie State was in November of 2006, I was the director of public relations marketing publications. and then when I s soon after I got here, I I established a collegiate trademark and licensing program to get our institutional athletic branding under one umbrella and get it cleaned up and unified. And then we began the transition to university status around 2010, 2011.

And then gained university status in 2012. So yeah, I've been on the front lines of seeing a lot of this institution's transformation over the last 15 years. And now your role is to work with student athletes and to promote the athletic division. Right. I transitioned back when I first graduated from college, I got a job as what's called an assistant sports information director up the road at Southern Utah University, which is about 45 minutes of the road in Cedar City.

So I worked in athletic media relations for eight plus years before coming to Dixie State and leaving the athletic world and working in the institutional management level. And then I was fortunate enough in 2015 with a new president and some changes going on here in our athletic department to be able to leave that role and transition back into intercollegiate athletics in a role similar to what I had when I was at Southern Utah University. I always struggled when I was at

a community college with promoting our athletics division. It was we had a very small division. I mean we had men and women's basketball, we had men and women's soccer, women's beach volleyball. And that was it. And then we had a surf team, but it was a club sport. Right. And so even with just a handful of programs, you know, our athletics director would always ask for help with promotions. And I we just didn't have the capacity.

to do anything beyond make them, you know, program guides. What are some of the things that you've been able to accomplish and what are some best practices for promoting athletics, especially for those smaller colleges that don't have a lot of capacity? You know, what what should they be doing? Well, kind of see how your peer institutions are are set up and what you're able to pull off, whatever small staff that you may have, and look at either getting a website created for you,

Cheryl Broom (07:02.964)
Or being able to use student workers that may have an interest in going into sports management and getting a job in professional sports or college sports that are in your English department or communication department. If you have those types of two-year programs there that can help you with content creation, social media is a big thing right now, you know, that can create graphics and try to as best as you can be able to get the word out about not only.

what's going on athletically at those institutions, but in turn, hopefully it creates interest in that institution overall from an academic standpoint, which ultimately may lead to higher enrollments and more community support, which means, you know, donations or things of that nature. Yeah, that's a good point. I was reflecting back when you were talking about some of the things that I did do to help the athletics department. And one of the things that I really liked to do, and this is partly because of I had a media background, was

Telling the student story. And one of the biggest like media blitzes that we ever had was a student basketball player who was like 33, and he got accepted with the full ride scholarship to a really elite university to play basketball, like a really competitive team. And because of his age, it generated a lot of media interest. And we lost this like tiny little basketball team.

But we had like news channels show up, reporters. He got so much attention. And it was really exciting for the college. People started actually showing up to games to see him play. That's a good anecdotal story because to your point about the media showing up to cover this individual who had a unique story and a unique background. Think of all the free marketing and publicity and the marketing dollars you're saving from those media outlets telling your story about.

The student athlete at that institution. That's free marketing right there. And ultimately that might lead other potential student athletes to look at going to that school. And in turn, if they're popular in high school or if they've got friends at high school that are also looking to go to college, they'll may follow that potential student athlete to that school. Anecdotally, we hear that if a student athlete signs an NLI out of high school.

Cheryl Broom (09:27.168)
play football or basketball or whatever sport may be, on average, they may have five or six friends, maybe even 10 to 15 friends, that will follow them to that school, which obviously is an enrollment boom that you wouldn't really anticipate happening with one person from a high school or junior college going to a four-year school that would help in your overall enrollment. And the same can be said from when a high school athlete

would go to a junior college, I would think. Yeah. I think that's a really great point too. I hadn't thought of that. I mean, you're you're right. If you think of my son, my 13 year old, who plays competitive soccer and he's got the same group of like five boys that kind of just have played on all these teams together since they were four years old. I'm sure that they'll end up following each other to wherever they get in, they'll all want to get in together. Right. And and obviously regardless of what level you're at.

Winning helps. And if you have a winning program, they're winning conference championships all the time, or going onto the national tournament and gaining notoriety from a national standpoint, you're obviously you're going to see an enrollment boom from that as well. You look at, take for instance, this past NCAA tournament with Baylor and Gonzaga. I had the privilege, I guess, probably a better term, to go up to Gonzaga to watch our team play Gonzaga right for the new year. And thinking of of all the free.

marketing and publicity those 68 teams got from playing in the NCAA tournament, being on television. And as teams progress to success, those are extra marketing dollars that you're getting for free being on television. And that adds to your recruiting tool to get the general student body who'd want to be part of that, to be part of that university of that success, or to bring it back to the junior college level. If you know you got the final eight teams going to Hutchinson, Kansas for the NJCA Division I men's and women's basketball tournament.

And they're getting a lot of publicity locally for for that students are are gravitated to going to a an institution that has not only a high level of academic success and and notoriety, but also an athletic success and notoriety and that just bolsters their decision making on what schools they want to go to. Yeah. And apart from marketing and recruitment, and what else does a good strong athletic program bring to a

Cheryl Broom (11:50.358)
a community college. Having a strong athletic program that shows school spirit that shows that you know you're not basically going to a college to sit at a desk, do homework, and then sit in a in a dorm or an apartment. There is student life to be enjoyed, whether it be through intramurals or through intercollegiate athletics, to give a complete student life perspective to a potential student that might be enrolling at your school. And also

garner support and rally support around the community. If the community feels that it's a part of that institution, they're going to feel a part of that success and basically make that community that the college is in into like a college town where you see banners, posters, flags on cars, signs and messages like, there's a game tonight, or there's a band concert, or or celebrate our 2021 graduates. Just basically using athletics as the front

porch to the entire institution and the rallying point for not only the institution and the students, the faculty, staff at the institution, but as the community as a whole to rally around it and give that complete community feeling to it. It definitely does build a sense of community when you all have something to rally behind and to celebrate and support. I haven't ever really experienced that personally because my high school

Athletics team sucked. It was really bad. I mean, we were surfers, we were on the beach. I went to UC Santa Barbara that got rid of its football team. and at the time had a very bad basketball team and not a lot of sports. I am a little older than you. I remember back the UCSB days when Jerry Pym was the head coach, and they were very solid in the Big West and usually came down between UCSB and UNLV back in the heydays.

Of Jerry Pym and Jerry Tarkanian. I I get where you come from with the UC Santa River deal. When I was at Weaver State, to give you an anecdotal idea of that type of community feel and sense of university pride. During my time at Weaver State, and I went there long enough to get my doctorate, now I got my four-year degree. but in 19 95, Weaver State won the Big Sky Conference Tournament and they drew Michigan State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. And

Cheryl Broom (14:12.204)
Weaver State was a 14, Michigan State was a three seed. And Weaver State pulled off an upset and knocked off Michigan State and came within an eyelash of knocking off Georgetown in the second round of the tournament to go on to the Sweet 16 to possibly play North Carolina. Being a Weaver State student at that time in 1995 was an incredible feeling because basically the entire campus was unified around that.

And then it kind of felt that way as an alumnus in 99 when we were repeated the feat and beat North Carolina in the first round of the 99 NCAA tournament. But you look at like this, for instance, you saw if if any of your listeners saw the NCAA tournament this year and saw the national championship game between Baylor and Gonzaga, and they had cutaway shots at the Baylor's football stadium, and how that place was packed full of students and people that really didn't get to go see games that much this year because of the pandemic.

And they also showed a cutaway shot at Gonzaga in the basketball arena. And to see those students celebrating the fact that their teams were in the national championship game, you saw the excitement, you saw this sense of unity and pride. And I think having that type of spirit generating excitement and activity at a college, regardless of level, just enriches the overall college experience and the college student experience.

Yeah, I I definitely agree. And as a parent to a an athlete, I really, really, really missed tournaments and games during COVID. I was surprised by how like not upset but sad I was and I didn't get to go and watch these games and see these kids play and and cheer for people. This time last year, I mean, I I'll admit I was lost.

I mean, I I was working from home, but we had no games to cover. I was doing a lot of busy work, things of that nature. But you also had to worry about the mental part of it, especially with our student athletes who had their entire routines altered. no more practices, no more games. They had to take classes remotely. They had to do finals remotely. And yeah, if you're taking online courses, that's not really that big a deal. But not only for our student athletes, but the regular student.

Cheryl Broom (16:30.008)
Body in general that are used that want that social interaction, that want to have that classroom experience, to have the instructor professor interaction. And so this past year especially has been kind of a a unique deal across the board. But you kind of saw how we kind of up until that point, we took everything for granted in our profession and working at colleges and universities and in higher education as a whole, and how we're slowly getting back to that. And I think.

You will see, as you saw this past spring with athletics kind of coming back and feeling that there's a sense of normalcy. And I think you will also see come this fall, if everything trends the way it's going to trend and we reach the herd immunity and people are getting vaccinated and they're doing things that they need to do to get us back to where we used to be. You will see, I'm predicting this, you will see that college athletics across the board from junior college all the way up to the highest levels of division one.

will serve as a healing tool or a rallying point where everyone will come together and realize that things are sort of back to normal. Well, I think you're right. It will be interesting to see this fall how, you know, when everybody's back, hopefully, and it might be next spring for some colleges. I think there might be this renewed like celebration and participation in athletics because when it has been gone, I think people have missed it.

They hadn't have anything really that they could turn to to escape. I would hope that being able to go back and supporting your local institution, going to games, going to concerts, going to recitals, theater productions, whatever it is, gets us back to where we need to be as a community, as colleges and universities, and return to what normal used to be. Yeah, I think that's really, really true. Well.

One other thing I wanted to ask you about before we wrap up our conversation is you do a lot of promoting the games, promoting the athletes, but what do we need to do to support student athletes? I know they have crazy schedules, they have a lot of demands. For those out there who are faculty members listening or maybe in student services, what are some things that help them be successful academically? We're fortunate.

Cheryl Broom (18:50.298)
The division one level and the NCA level overall, that we do have academic advisors in our department that help our student athletes. We also have what's called a faculty athletic representative, which is a member of the faculty that works as a liaison between the faculty and our athletic department, that the faculty can approach, talk about issues that they may have in terms of student athletes missing classes or not getting their assignments turned in or making sure that there's communication between student athletes.

And and their faculty when they're gone on road trips, making sure that their work is getting turned in, making sure they're they're meeting the minimum requirements academically. communication is key. The support needs to work both ways. Can't be a one-sided deal where everybody's bending over backwards for the student athlete. We would make sure that everything is taken care of professionally and we're doing what we need to do to support the faculty who support our student athletes. One of the things I would also recommend.

Even if you're not a sports fan, even if you're there, if you bring some knitting or a book or whatever else, one of the things that you can do as a faculty member or a staff member is go to a game. I've seen it, I've heard it anecdotally, that student athletes will look up in the stands, they're gonna see you who's cheering for them. And if they lock eyes with a professor or instructor and they see that they're there, that student athlete is gonna feel like they're being supported. That does wonders for not only for their morale, but also it it kind of bolsters.

Their willingness to put in the work, to get their assignments done, to get their testing done, to get the pass the classes, and gives them a sense of meeting that responsibility they have as student athletes to take care of their schoolwork. So I think that's those one that's one of the simple things that could be done. Well, that's great. And the fact that you have a faculty liaison, what a great idea. I don't know if that's common, but it is commonplace at the NCA level. All NCA institutions at the Division One, Two, and Three level have faculty athletic representatives.

Those faculty that serve in those roles, they're part of our athletic department in a in a limited capacity. But at the same time, they go to trainings, they sit through meetings with the athletic conferences, but they also go to national conferences hosted by the NCAA, where they can keep track and keep tabs on the latest in NSA rules and regulations when it comes to academic performance and academic attainment. Because while student athletes are here to you know wear uniforms and play sports.

Cheryl Broom (21:17.506)
They also have to show progression to degree completion. And a lot of funding that comes to institutions from the NCAA and the ability to go to postseason tournament or being eligible for postseason tournament possibilities and consideration is educational attainment and graduation rates. One of the most fun classes I ever taught, I used to teach at Miracosa and then Palomar College. And Palomar has a huge sports program. And I

taught six and seven a.m. public speaking because I had to teach before my full-time job. And in the 6 a.m. class one semester, I had 15 baseball players and five softball players. So I don't know if the counselor decided if this just worked that semester or if I was flagged as somebody that was patient, but I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.

It was a crazy class. And right there with the with the time that you gave it too, I mean, six, seven o'clock in the morning, that kind of just gives you kind of an idea of the time management that a student athlete has to go through each day. You know, whether they have practices early in the morning and then they have class in the afternoon, then study hall, then trying to get workouts in, making sure they're being fed, keeping their nutrition up. If they're injured, you know, taking time to get treatment.

From the athletic training staff. But the fact that you had 15 baseball players and eight or nine softball players in a class at 6 a.m. just kind of shows you the type of time commitment that these young men and women have undertaken to be able to not only perform in the classroom, but also perform out on the field. And so I bet being a com major myself and taking a couple of public speaking classes, I can only imagine what some of those subject matters were. I bet it was a

fun class to grade and to sit through. It was a lot of fun. And to your point, just with time management, there actually was one of my most well-attended classes. I students came every day at six o'clock or three days a week because they have to. They're they're held accountable. They want to play their sport. They need to have good grades. So you think that they wouldn't show up, but they did. They showed up at 6 a.m. And yeah, the topics were were were quite funny

Cheryl Broom (23:43.438)
Well, it was great talking to you, Steve. I've known you since what, twenty two thousand nine, two thousand ten. Mm-hmm. Is that when you got on the NCMPR board and we were all in the same district together? You were one of my favorite people to work with. And you know, I've always kept track and I don't want to say a Facebook stock you, but you know, we're Facebook friends and and I see a lot of things that you post and how you've transitioned roles and

with your new business and I can't be more excited and happy for you and and so glad that you and your family are doing great. And I wish you nothing but the best with this with this new venture that you have. And I appreciate our friendship. And I'm so glad that you reached out to me. well thank you, Steve. That's so kind of you. And I really appreciate your time. I've always admired you and following your passion as well. not a lot of us get the opportunity to end up, I think, where we belong. And you and I have both been able to do that. Yep. And

Thank you again for having me. It was great to great visit with you today. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. If you like the podcast, please leave me a five-star rating. And to discover more great higher education related content, make sure to visit us at graduatecommunications.com. And with that, I'm going to say thank you for listening.

Thank you for the hard work you do for students each and every day.