VIEW FULL POSTING ONLINE

General Description: Assist in the publicity and promotion of the University of Tennessee’s 20 Division I varsity athletic programs, with an intense focus on brand building and comprehensive excellence. Work closely with local and national media in promoting Tennessee Athletics while helping to execute the department’s digital and social strategy. Will report to the Associate Athletics Director for Communications but will be mentored by the entire Athletics Communications staff in preparation for a successful, achievement-oriented career in athletic communications.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Primary responsibility is to serve as the primary media relations contact for one of Tennessee’s Olympic sports programs and a secondary contact for the football program.
• Develop and execute multi-faceted promotional strategies for Tennessee athletic programs and/or individuals.
• Collaborate closely with local, regional and national media outlets—as well as Tennessee’s VFL Films staff—to pitch and execute story ideas promoting teams and individual student-athletes and staff members.
• Maintain statistical records, provide real-time data entry during live events and archive digital and physical records for historical reference.
• Ensure accurate and up-to-date information—including bios, rosters, schedules, statistics, previews and recaps—is published daily via UTsports.com and sport-specific social media platforms.
• Assist with the training and mentoring of the media relations undergraduate student intern staff.
• Serve as liaison between the athletic department and media, general public and University community.
• Help manage media relations logistics associated with selected athletic events.
• Assist with projects within the athletic department presented by the Associate Athletics Director for Communications.
• Must be willing to work/travel on nights and weekends (as well as holidays).
• Other duties as assigned (while not currently planned, sport-specific responsibilities may change from year to year).

Education: Bachelor’s degree required. Preferred majors include journalism, public relations, communications, sports management, business administration or a related field of study.

Experience: At least two years of previous experience in an NCAA media relations/communications office, professional sports franchise, or comparable work environment. It’s preferable that candidates have previous experience as a primary or secondary sport contact at the NCAA or professional level.

Competencies/Skills:

• Demonstrated capacity for strategic thinking and strong PR sensibilities.
• Strong writing and verbal communications skills. 
• Basic working familiarity with Stat Crew software.
• Ability to create compelling and engaging live social media content.
• Advanced knowledge of PC and Apple computers. 
• Basic HTML coding ability.
• Basic graphic creation and video-editing skills.
• Ability to develop and maintain positive personal relationships with internal and external constituencies.
• Certain technical knowledge may be required, including demonstrated experience with Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, SIDEARM and The Automated Scorebook (Stat Crew).
• Basic working knowledge and familiarity with NCAA rules.

Behaviors:

This position will exhibit qualities of emotional maturity, genuineness, self-confidence, common sense, judgment, fairness, creativity, discretion, decisiveness, political savvy, diplomacy, tact, resiliency, adaptability, courage of convictions and tolerance for ambiguity. Demonstrated behavioral expectations include:

• Unquestioned integrity and trustworthiness.
• Commitment to the University’s mission and strategic plan, as well as missions and strategic plans for each campus/institute.
• Ability to make good, consistent and fair decisions (based on fact and data).
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams and to foster teamwork.