UK Football SIDs Honored by Football Writers Association of America
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Football sports information directors from University of Kentucky Athletics Communications and Public Relations have been honored by the Football Writers Association of America with a Super 11 Award for their hard work this season.
The Super 11 Award is presented annually to the 11 best performing College Sports Communicators departments in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. Kentucky’s sports information directors include Tony Neely (assistant athletics director), Susan Lax (director), Matt May (associate director) and Cami Williams (associate director). This is the third time UK’s staff has been honored.
“Congratulations to Tony, Susan, Matt and Cami on this incredible and well-deserved honor,” said UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart. “I have witnessed first-hand how hard they each work to make sure our student-athletes, coaches and staff receive the recognition they deserve. It’s fun to turn that around and be able to give our media relations staff the recognition they deserve as well. I hope they each know how much we appreciate all they do.”
This year’s winners were deemed to have had excellent accessibility during the week of the game and after the game – with a program’s players, coaches and coordinators/assistant coaches – along with the other listed criteria in the 2023-24 FWAA Directory. Joining Kentucky on the list was Clemson, Nebraska, Navy, Kansas State, Pittsburgh, BYU, Cal, LSU, Illinois and Oklahoma.
“We once again honor some programs who have provided great assistance to writers for many years and have demonstrated a culture of excellence in what they do in their pressbox and in terms of accessibility to players and coaches,” said FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardson. “We applaud those programs as well as the two newcomer programs.”
“I want to thank these departments for fostering a welcoming environment and providing terrific access, allowing us to tell the stories that are informative and insightful,” said 2024 FWAA President, Andrea Adelson of ESPN.com. “Rather than limit our access, they understand providing more than just a fleeting glimpse into their programs is a service not only to their player and coaches but to their respective fan bases as well.”
FWAA members provided input during the season when press boxes were judged on how well they were run and maintained in terms of neutrality, pool reporters, noise level and accessibility to the press box that could affect a media person’s ability to do his or her job.
In January 2009, the FWAA released the first Super 11 Awards – a concept supported by the College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA). The FWAA has now awarded at least one Super 11 Award to 81 different programs.
