TOM'S TIME: Long-Time Bobcat Sports Information Director Tom Schulz Earns CoSIDA Plaudits
5/10/2019 5:00:00 PM | General
CoSIDA celebrates Tom Schulz's 25-plus years in the Sports Information profession
Tom Schulz's 31 years in Montana State's Sports Information Office have included some of the greatest moments in Bobcat history.
Since arriving at Montana State in 1988, Schulz, the MSU Director of Athletics Communications, has witnessed seven of the school's 11 women's basketball coaches and worked with eight of its 11 volleyball coaches. The longest-tenured sports information staffer in school history has worked with the school's longest-tenured coaches in women's basketball, volleyball, men's and women's tennis, and track and field. He has been around long enough to have called three different campus buildings home, and fittingly was hired by the school's first full-time Director of Women's Athletics, Dr. Ginny Hunt, in 1988.
Schulz has worked with all five title-winning teams in MSU women's basketball history, back-to-back-to-back Big Sky Championship men's tennis teams, Bobcat volleyball's most prolonged string of winning teams, and countless individual champions and record-setters in track, skiing and women's tennis. He's witnessed first-hand three-quarters of the history of formal women's athletics at Montana State.
None of that, though, is what matters most to Schulz, who will receive a 2019 CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors) 25-Year Award for his long-time commitment and service to athletic communications.
"I was always amazed at the former coaches and athletes he has stayed in touch with," Hunt said.
The summertime parade of former Bobcat volleyball and women's basketball players through Schulz's office sometimes seems to call for a traffic signal, and as a current MSU women's basketball assistant coach, Kati Mobley makes the pilgrimage daily.
"Speaking as a student-athlete, alumna, and now assistant coach, Tom has been one of the constants in Montana State Athletics," Mobley said of Schulz, who tells stories about watching her play at Bozeman High School. "The things he does for our programs often go unnoticed and are hugely under-appreciated. Tom is our foundation and the strength behind what we do at this University. His unwavering support and infectious sense of humor has led to numerous lifelong friendships."
The first quality friends and peers identify when discussing Schulz is his humor. "He is funny," says women's basketball player Blaire Braxton, and Mobley fields frequent requests for Schulz to travel regularly with the team.
Dave Gantt, the current University of Providence Athletic Director who revived MSU's volleyball fortunes in the 1990s and also coached at Gonzaga, has travel stories involving Schulz that range from what he called "The Great LA Van Chase" on the California freeways, to a weekend tournament at Myrtle Beach which featured Western movies and cookies. Gantt said Schulz was "always jovial to be around. There was never a dull moment because there was always banter." Gantt calls Schulz a "long-time friend" who "was always fun."
An Anoka, Minnesota product, Schulz received his bachelor's degree from Bemidji State, where he served as sports editor of the Northern Student newspaper. He then received his master's degree from St. Cloud State where he interned for the school's legendary sports information director Anne Abicht.
Growing up in suburban Minneapolis, Schulz competed in hockey, tennis, and Nordic skiing.
Among his odd jobs through the years was a summer spent making sausage. "It was like an 'I Love Lucy' episode," Schulz laughs. "We'd stand there with the casings, waiting for the meat to stuff inside, and we had to keep up. There was an old guy that only spoke Greek named Boris who kept an eye on us, but sometimes we'd snag a sausage and (after frying it using heat generated by the conveyer belt's engine) eat it for breakfast."
That wide range of experience perfectly prepared him for his role at MSU.
"Tom brought a background of sports and journalism to the job," Hunt said. "He'd been an athlete so he was knowledgeable about demands they faced. His journalistic training added to his ability to make good decisions in his reporting efforts, and he worked well with coaches."
Schulz's early employment terms involved spending time on the road in during summer months conducting MSU-For-A-Day recruiting events. The travel party included administrators, faculty and legendary former football coach Sonny Holland, then the alumni director.
"We'd travel to different parts of the state and hit (two or three) schools on a trip," Schulz said. "We'd have engineering and physics professors along, food and nutrition professors giving presentations involving a vat of butter and whatever else, and Sonny would stock my room with beverages."
Initially Schulz's position fell entirely under Women's Athletics. When the men's and women's departments merged in the mid-1990s he became associate sports information director, and later SID. He has remained the only full-time publicist the MSU women's basketball and volleyball programs have ever known.
Since moving to Bozeman in 1988, Schulz and his wife Pam have raised three die-hard Bobcat fans. Pam and their oldest son Nic work on campus, daughter Grace is finishing in MSU's nursing program, and youngest son Brady enters his junior season as a business major and a football team offensive lineman at UM Western.
Riding the waves of computerization and digitalization into the age of social media and instant communication, Schulz has adapted, evolved and become proficient at everything the business offers. And he remains a touchstone for so many Bobcat student-athletes of the last three decades.
As Mobley says, speaking for herself and so many others, "Tom is Montana State."
#GoCatsGo
Since arriving at Montana State in 1988, Schulz, the MSU Director of Athletics Communications, has witnessed seven of the school's 11 women's basketball coaches and worked with eight of its 11 volleyball coaches. The longest-tenured sports information staffer in school history has worked with the school's longest-tenured coaches in women's basketball, volleyball, men's and women's tennis, and track and field. He has been around long enough to have called three different campus buildings home, and fittingly was hired by the school's first full-time Director of Women's Athletics, Dr. Ginny Hunt, in 1988.
Schulz has worked with all five title-winning teams in MSU women's basketball history, back-to-back-to-back Big Sky Championship men's tennis teams, Bobcat volleyball's most prolonged string of winning teams, and countless individual champions and record-setters in track, skiing and women's tennis. He's witnessed first-hand three-quarters of the history of formal women's athletics at Montana State.
None of that, though, is what matters most to Schulz, who will receive a 2019 CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors) 25-Year Award for his long-time commitment and service to athletic communications.
"I was always amazed at the former coaches and athletes he has stayed in touch with," Hunt said.
The summertime parade of former Bobcat volleyball and women's basketball players through Schulz's office sometimes seems to call for a traffic signal, and as a current MSU women's basketball assistant coach, Kati Mobley makes the pilgrimage daily.
"Speaking as a student-athlete, alumna, and now assistant coach, Tom has been one of the constants in Montana State Athletics," Mobley said of Schulz, who tells stories about watching her play at Bozeman High School. "The things he does for our programs often go unnoticed and are hugely under-appreciated. Tom is our foundation and the strength behind what we do at this University. His unwavering support and infectious sense of humor has led to numerous lifelong friendships."
The first quality friends and peers identify when discussing Schulz is his humor. "He is funny," says women's basketball player Blaire Braxton, and Mobley fields frequent requests for Schulz to travel regularly with the team.
Dave Gantt, the current University of Providence Athletic Director who revived MSU's volleyball fortunes in the 1990s and also coached at Gonzaga, has travel stories involving Schulz that range from what he called "The Great LA Van Chase" on the California freeways, to a weekend tournament at Myrtle Beach which featured Western movies and cookies. Gantt said Schulz was "always jovial to be around. There was never a dull moment because there was always banter." Gantt calls Schulz a "long-time friend" who "was always fun."
An Anoka, Minnesota product, Schulz received his bachelor's degree from Bemidji State, where he served as sports editor of the Northern Student newspaper. He then received his master's degree from St. Cloud State where he interned for the school's legendary sports information director Anne Abicht.
Growing up in suburban Minneapolis, Schulz competed in hockey, tennis, and Nordic skiing.
Among his odd jobs through the years was a summer spent making sausage. "It was like an 'I Love Lucy' episode," Schulz laughs. "We'd stand there with the casings, waiting for the meat to stuff inside, and we had to keep up. There was an old guy that only spoke Greek named Boris who kept an eye on us, but sometimes we'd snag a sausage and (after frying it using heat generated by the conveyer belt's engine) eat it for breakfast."
That wide range of experience perfectly prepared him for his role at MSU.
"Tom brought a background of sports and journalism to the job," Hunt said. "He'd been an athlete so he was knowledgeable about demands they faced. His journalistic training added to his ability to make good decisions in his reporting efforts, and he worked well with coaches."
Schulz's early employment terms involved spending time on the road in during summer months conducting MSU-For-A-Day recruiting events. The travel party included administrators, faculty and legendary former football coach Sonny Holland, then the alumni director.
"We'd travel to different parts of the state and hit (two or three) schools on a trip," Schulz said. "We'd have engineering and physics professors along, food and nutrition professors giving presentations involving a vat of butter and whatever else, and Sonny would stock my room with beverages."
Initially Schulz's position fell entirely under Women's Athletics. When the men's and women's departments merged in the mid-1990s he became associate sports information director, and later SID. He has remained the only full-time publicist the MSU women's basketball and volleyball programs have ever known.
Since moving to Bozeman in 1988, Schulz and his wife Pam have raised three die-hard Bobcat fans. Pam and their oldest son Nic work on campus, daughter Grace is finishing in MSU's nursing program, and youngest son Brady enters his junior season as a business major and a football team offensive lineman at UM Western.
Riding the waves of computerization and digitalization into the age of social media and instant communication, Schulz has adapted, evolved and become proficient at everything the business offers. And he remains a touchstone for so many Bobcat student-athletes of the last three decades.
As Mobley says, speaking for herself and so many others, "Tom is Montana State."
#GoCatsGo
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