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CoSIDA.com/ThankYourSID
This feature is part of our series of profiles showcasing members throughout the CoSIDA membership during the celebration of CoSIDA Membership Recognition Week for 2018. See more features at CoSIDA.com/ThankYourSID.
Jon Holtz - Slippery Rock Director of Athletic Communications
by Rob Knox, Towson University Associate Media Relations Director / 2018-19 CoSIDA President
All
Jon Holtz could do while glancing at the names of the ECAC-SIDA past presidents was to shake his head in awe.
The veteran Slippery Rock Director of Athletic Communications is among the giants of the industry.
"I am incredibly honored and humbled to be serving as president of ECAC-SIDA and to have my name listed among some of the all-time greats in the profession who have been president before me," Holtz said. "I am incredibly passionate about the organization and I'm working hard, along with our executive board, to set us up for success this year and in the future. I credit the start of my career to (now retired SID) Steve McCloskey bringing me to the 2006 ECAC-SIDA workshop when I was still an undergrad student at Mansfield."
Holtz's journey to the president's role basically started when the former Mansfield track and field athlete injured his ankle after he was tripped at the starting line of a race.
"I got lucky, really," Holtz said. "I was running a hard workout on the track at Mansfield one day during my junior year when Steve McCloskey came down to practice to ask my coach 'if he had any students that could write.' I was an English major, so coach gave Steve my name. He approached me during practice, between 200-meter reps, and offered me a job. I thought he was crazy.
"I had no interest in working on top of my course and track schedule, so I said no. Following my injury, however, I got bored, so I went back in and asked Steve about the job. The rest is history. Mansfield dropped its football program the next fall and Steve leaned on me to handle a lot of the daily operation of the office. He had taken me to the ECAC-SIDA workshop the summer before that fall, where I met Bob Beretta. Beretta ended up offering me a position at Army before I even graduated."
The passionate Holtz has used all the lessons passed on from McCloskey, who learned from the late legendary East Stroudsburg SID Pete Nevins, to fuel his career, help others, make an impact and lead a major organization. It's a great mentor track, as both Nevins and McCloskey are CoSIDA Hall of Famers, with Nevins inducted in 1987 and McCloskey in 2016.
Spending most of his career in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC), Holtz was fortunate to learn from many of the best in the business including former Bloomsburg boss Tom McGuire, a CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient in 2017.
"I've learned to be more compassionate and have a better attitude from (Shippensburg SID) Bill Morgal," Holtz said. "I've learned to be a better researcher from (East Stroudsburg SID) Greg Knowlden. I've learned what real passion for what you do looks like from RPI's Perry Laskaris."
And, Holtz also singled out other colleagues as well.
"I've learned how to be a much better listener and more effective leader from Tyler McIntosh, J.D. Tinkey, Madeline Williams and Ben Matos," he concluded, noting his fellow athletic communications colleagues from Slippery Rock, Detroit Mercy, Gannon and Slippery Rock again, respectively. The quartet also served as graduate assistants at SRU.
All of the qualities have helped Holtz in his role as ECAC-SIDA president.
One of the organization's big priorities is reworking the mission statement and the goals of the organization. In addition to planning for June's workshop in Framingham, outside of Boston, Holtz is part of an ECAC-SIDA strategic planning committee that meets monthly. They have started the process of mapping out what the future holds for the organization.
Another big initiative of ECAC-SIDA has been increasing its social presence this year, which it has done successfully.
"We've made a big effort in the early months of our new executive board to provide more yearlong value to our members, outside of just the workshop," Holtz said. "We've done this with a lot more web features and member profiles and a much more enhanced social media presence. I have to thank Kailin Nelson at Chatham and Emily Machado at Wentworth, who are our website and social media chairs, for really helping us step up our game in those areas this year."
Holtz also is an active member of CoSIDA, presenting at numerous professional development webinars and at conventions, contributing to the CoSIDA 360 magazine and most recently, contributing to a CoSIDA New Media committee feature piece "
Building a Brand Identity From Scratch."
Even though has earned plenty of accolades such as being honored twice by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) as a national Excellence in Communications Award winner, with Gold Award from the Collegiate Advertising Awards and with 33 CoSIDA national publication honors, including an impressive 19 "Best in the Nation" awards. Holtz has always cared about the success of his student staff.
"I am always most proud of seeing our student-workers graduate and get jobs, whether that is in sports or not," Holtz said. "We have a really great record of students graduating and moving on to great careers. We had a stretch recently where all 25 graduates in a five-year stretch that wanted to work in sports all got jobs in sports. Being able to play a role in developing some of the professional skills these students take with them is the part of the job I still find the most rewarding."
Holtz Professional Development Tip: Branding
It's crucial to decide what you want your messaging to be and to stick to it. You can't create expectations or give your fans something to look forward to if you're not consistent with what you're delivering. The first step for us was deciding we were just going to stick primarily with accurate information about our programs and that we were going to leave the gimmicks behind. Once we made that decision, we worked on creating content that met that goal. We don't push content just to push content. We only push something if we think its meaningful and our fans will care about it.