With Who: Athletics, College of Charleston
Location: Charleston, SC (TD Arena)
Dates: Fall 2021
Hours: 4 hours per week, plus working live athletic events throughout the calendar year**
What we do in Strategic Communications:
- Responsible for shaping the message of the athletic department.
- Tell the stories of the student-athletes and coaches through social media, website content, etc. (MOST IMPORTANT THING WE DO IS LIFT UP OUR ATHLETES AND COACHES)
- Create social media content via strategic campaigns, graphics, photos, etc.
- Release program news, generate media interest and serve as lead communicators in times of crisis
- Promote our teams in a positive way constantly, on and off the playing surface
- Facilitate the media to get our story told at the highest level to the biggest audience
- Build our student-athletes’ brand and put them in the best possible position to message that brand in a positive, professional manner (media training, etc.)
- Supplement TV coverage through personal relationships, extensive game notes/research and brand messaging
- Preserve history, monitor historical significance, be statisticians at heart
- Execute the design of programs, gameday publications, newsletters and other written materials
What you’ll do as a Strat. Comm. Intern:
- Write! This includes press releases, feature stories, game previews, recaps and more
- Aid in social content creation, with the opportunity to learn Photoshop, InDesign, video/photo editing and more
- Help run gameday operations (wide variety of duties), allowing you to gain experience at live events for all CofC Sports
- Help with publications (game programs, media guides, game notes packets, newsletters). 90 percent of the pieces of communication you see at games or athletic events originate from our office
- Research statistics, which facilitates social campaigns, student-athlete promotion and history preservation
- Set up and run media availabilities/press conferences/interviews. You are instrumental to postgame press conferences
- Serve as resources for the media on gamedays. We will help put you in a position where you are comfortable doing this
What you will walk away with:
- Applicable real-world materials to use in a portfolio, including written content, website campaigns, social media content examples and more
- Years of experience working in a live gameday setting
- Lifelong references to help you land jobs in the athletic communications world or in the public relations field in general.
- The tools needed to be successful as a public relations pro
- Potentially earn the ability to be thee assigned PR rep for a specific CofC team to add to your resume
Nuts & Bolts:
- **Four office hours per week (two on one day, two on another depending on your academic schedule) at TD Arena (none during CofC academic calendar breaks) plus working live athletic events throughout the calendar year.
- Work athletic events as you’re able to pending class schedules, etc… A Monday morning e-mail will be sent out with a schedule of events. Sign up as you can with the corresponding full-time staff member assigned to that sport
- Easy baseline expectations/rules to be aware of
- Clean up social media. No hot takes, no raging, etc. Preps you for the real world
- We don’t cheer in the press box or at games. It’s a professional environment. We have a blast still, we just wait to celebrate
- Keep things close to the vest
Apply (or request more information): Contact R.J. Layton at 765-491-5348 or at laytonr@cofc.edu if interested.