The Pete Nevins Award for Distinguished Achievement is presented to an individual in recognition of his or her advancement of the field of athletic communications and advocacy for intercollegiate athletics. The winner must have served at least 25 years in the sports information field, and be either a current or former member of ECAC-SIDA. The award is presented at the discretion of the ECAC-SIDA Executive Board and is voted on by former Nevins' Award winners. Only one winner can be named per year.
 
After informing our award winners this spring, we picked their brains to find out a little more about them and why they are worthy recipients to be honored on June 6 in Framingham at our Annual Awards Dinner. Here is a little more about 2019 Pete Nevins Award winner Dennis O'Donnell.

O'Donnell has served as the director of athletic communications at the University of Rochester since 1988. In his role at Rochester, he has tirelessly covered the Yellowjackets' 23 sports with a level of commitment that has been recognized numerous times nationally. O'Donnell has already been inducted into the CoSIDA Hall of Fame, is a CoSIDA 25-year Award winner and was honored by CoSIDA as the 2010 Warren Berg Award winner. He has been a vocal supporter and active participant in ECAC-SIDA for decades, including serving as the Workshop chair in Rochester in 1999, and was honored with the College Division Irving T. Marsh Award from ECAC-SIDA in 2003.


1. ECAC-SIDA: How long have you been in the business?

Dennis O'Donnell: I am finishing my 39th year in the business and my 31st year at the University of Rochester.
 
2. ECAC-SIDA: How did you get into the profession and what has kept you in it?

DO: I went to college at LIU-Brooklyn. The SID was Bob Gesslein. I wrote for the school newspaper and was in touch with Bob constantly. One day he said he was consulting for a school on Long Island that was going to create a full-time job but he didn't know if it would be enough money for him to leave LIU. Kiddingly, I told him I could work for less than he could. In late August, he said he wasn't leaving. He arranged an interview for me at the home football opener and a week later, they hired me. This was in September, 1974, roughly six weeks after Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States. The job was cut in March, 1978. I worked at a weekly soccer newspaper for six years until Kings Point called and asked if I was interested in returning. I did, in January, 1984, and moved to Rochester in September, 1988.
 
What keeps me in? I enjoy the work and trying to keep up with all of the changes. When I started in 1974, you called the local papers with the result, maybe a TV station if you had one, and went home. Now, you write web stories ad infinitum, but that's your biggest source of getting the news out. In those early years, you kept stats with paper and pencil. If you used a photo in a program, you had to show the printer which part of the photo you wanted to use and he (or she) would size it properly. Now, you can use photo manipulation software to automatically crop your photos.
 
3. ECAC-SIDA: Who were your mentors in the business and why?

DO: Far and away, Bob Gesslein – although neither of us knew it at the time. He treated all of the sports equally. He had information at his finger tips that we could always get. When LIU's basketball team (Division I) played on the road, Bob had the box scores and other data so we could write an effective story for the paper. I always remember with soccer season that he would rush to an office phone to call in the score to the NY Times and to Stan Lomax at WOR Radio in New York City. Stan did a sports show at 6 p.m. and read off whichever local scores he got. Gesslein made sure LIU's scores were there, whether the team won or lost. I was thrilled when he was selected to win the Irving T. Marsh University Division Award in Hartford, Conn. in 1993. In February, 2011, he was inducted into LIU's Athletic Hall of Fame.
 
The other mentors were people I met through ECAC-SIDA and CoSIDA. I also took notice of what others did. When I wrote for the soccer newspaper, we covered the North American Soccer League, specifically the New York Cosmos. I knew what I liked and did not like in game notes, or post-game interviews, etc. As a statistician at Madison Square Garden for basketball (college and pro), I saw how things were done by the folks behind the scenes – and again, made decisions on what I liked and what I would change, given an opportunity.
 
4. ECAC-SIDA: How do you balance work and life? What do you like to do outside of work?

DO: That is always the mammoth challenge for an SID. I tried to find time for Carol and I when time permitted it. Megan was born in 1995 and by sixth grade, she had a passion for music. I tried to make a number of her concerts. She played with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra for two years and they gave a concert at Carnegie Hall in 2013. My AD allowed me to miss Senior Day for basketball so I could fly to NYC, attend the concert, and fly home. That meant a lot. If I'm just relaxing, I like to read – mostly novels. I enjoy prowling the used book sales at libraries. I've found a big number of "new" authors for my tastes and the books are a lot cheaper than full price.
 
5. ECAC-SIDA: What is the best advice you've been given? What is the best advice you've given to your staff and students?

DO: By my first boss. I worked at Western Union Telegraph Co., joining the company right after high school and working there through my first three years of college. My boss told me this: "If you get a better paying job than you have now, don't raise your standard of living to match the salary increase exactly. Because if you ever have to leave that job and can't find something with an equal salary, you'll put yourself in a financial hole."
 
The best advice I give to my staff is this. There are two teams that play in a game. Make sure you mention both of them when you write a game story. Yes, at your place you can concentrate on your team, but don't ignore the opponent. Make sure you get something to them in a timely fashion. If you can't write a story to share, send the stats as quickly as you can after the event. They want to go home, too. SIDs used to think like PR people – what have they got that's interesting. With all the flexibility of the web and the tailing off of newspapers, they have to think like a TV producer (for video stories) and like a news editor (for 'print' stories).
 
6. ECAC-SIDA: What is your most memorable sports moment that you have seen from a work standpoint and as a fan?

DO: WORK - I left Kings Point in September, 1988 and came to Rochester. The new Kings Point basketball coach got them into the NCAA playoffs at Buffalo State College (about 75 miles west of Rochester). Carol and I drove over to watch them play. On the way home, I told Carol that I wanted to work an NCAA playoff game as an SID – just one, so I could see what the difference was. The next season (1989-90), Rochester won the Division III men's basketball championship. In a three-year period, I worked 15 NCAA playoff games – with two trips to the Final Four.
 
FAN – It's partially work-related. Carol and I worked as volunteers at the Media Centre for the 1994 FIFA Men's World Cup at the Meadowlands. Ireland upset Italy, 1-0, in the first game we worked. For the next game, the people running the Media Centre asked us to write a set of Americanized game notes for a match between Italy and Norway. We did, and they were forwarded to all the other venues which adopted them as the proper format.
 
7. ECAC-SIDA: What does winning the Pete Nevins Award mean to you?

DO: It's extremely humbling. I look at the previous winners and say to myself, "I don't know if I belong with this group". I guess is says I've been doing OK – and I'm very proud of that.
 

O'Donnell will be honored at the Annual Awards Dinner June 6 during the 2019 ECAC-SIDA Workshop at the Sheraton in Framingham, Massachusetts.