The job of someone in the sports information department is one of the hardest in sports. Yes, you’re working in sports, and that’s awesome. But it’s thankless, the hours are tough, the pay isn’t always great, and everyone either wants something from you or blames you first if something goes wrong. That’s why when sports information departments have great individuals, do things really, really well, or take chances, it’s to be celebrated.
Take NC Central following the Eagles’ dominating win over Coppin State in the MEAC quarterfinals on Wednesday. The school could’ve went with a safe gamer on its official site to quickly touch on the 91-43 win. Instead, Dan Ryan, described as an honorary NCCU staff member, dropped one of the hardest official game stories of all time into the mix.
Ryan is the senior writer for Bethune-Cookman’s official athletic site and is the school’s media contact for men’s basketball. The Wildcats dropped their MEAC tournament game to Coppin State in the previous round, otherwise they would’ve been the ones having to face the Eagles once again.
Athletics communications personnel help out during conference tournaments when their teams aren’t playing. So even when people in sports information aren’t working, they’re working. It’s a team effort to keep the tournament running, and the various staffs assist in the post-game press conferences, pull together notes, as well as transcribe and distribute quotes.
Since Bethune-Cookman wasn’t playing, Ryan stepped up to write the game story after NC Central dominated.
“My boss, Bryan Harvey, is a proud NCCU alum as is our recent hire, Andrea Wheeler,” Ryan told UPROXX Sports on Thursday. “Bryan worked for NCCU’s SID, Kyle Serba. The offices are tight. We beat NCCU in the 2012 tourney when one of our players took a charge with 15 seconds left to set up our game winning jumper. Since then, the phrase “take charge” appeared in practically every B-CU–NCCU recap I did. I also send Kyle a ticket request for Crash Davis, Annie Savoy and Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh every time we go to Durham. Bryan and Andrea couldn’t come up to the tournament because baseball and softball had home games. And another reason I got to come was because I’m “the writer.”
“Kyle was sitting next me in the media-room post-game and I asked him if he wanted my gamer. He had other stuff he needed to get done and we figured Bryan and Andrea would get a kick out of me having a story on the NCCU site. The national response? We’re going tell our grandkids about it. You can only do so much with a 48-point tournament game. Play-by-play? Come on. And I could have put a little more time in it, but the next game was starting plus I had my tennis and women’s basketball work to finish. And to quote Joker in the Dark Knight — ‘if you’re good at something, never do it for free.'”
And that’s how you end up with one of the best official game stories in recent memory.
Here are just the first few paragraphs of the article:
It might seem braggadocios, or arrogant, or boastful, or any number of other words people try to use to make awesome things seem less awesome, but NC Central deserves to say whatever it wants right now. The Eagles went 16-0 in conference this season and haven’t lost a conference game since Jan. 11 of last season. LeVelle Moton is one of the best mid-major coaches in America, and his team just more than doubled up its opponent to open the conference tournament.
Ryan said all the SIDs in the conference have each others’ backs, and he’s most proud of the times he’s called to tell a story that needs to be told. It was recently the 50th anniversary of the time Carl Fuller had 60 points and 40 rebounds in a game for Bethune-Cookman, and the school partnered with local papers to do a deep dive. When the game happened, Fuller got just three paragraphs in the local paper – 50 years later, his achievement could truly be honored.
He’d rather tell the story than be the story, but Ryan still finds the attention drawn from the article worthy of a laugh.
“[I’ve] gotta admit,” Ryan said, “this has been hilarious. I think we actually won the internet that night. Now I have another game today to try to top it.”
If an opponent uses this as bulletin board material and finds a way to win, fine. That’s not a bad thing. And that doesn’t automatically make doing this in the first place a bad idea to begin with. College athletics are supposed to be fun, and NC Central –and the rest of the MEAC – is having fun. Let’s enjoy it.
