Tuesday, June 8, 2021

The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) will honor 21 members with its 2020-21 Special Awards at its virtual convention throughout the week.

The 2020 Special Awards, announced throughout the week of Feb. 24-28 of last year, are presented for outstanding contributions to the organization. The first group of Special Award recipients recognized is the 2020 CoSIDA Hall of Fame class (below).

The 2020 CoSIDA Hall of Fame class highlights the Special Awards. In addition to the Hall of Fame, other Special Awards recognize emerging leaders, community service, lifetime achievement, organization trailblazer, outstanding media contribution, and 25-Year service honors. They will be announced throughout the week.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 CoSIDA Hall of Fame Class was not able to be recognized at the 2020 CoSIDA Convention in Las Vegas. The honorees will be celebrated with the 2021 Hall of Fame Class as well as the 2020 and 2021 Academic All-America Hall of Fame Classes.

CoSIDA is comprised of more than 3,100 intercollegiate athletic communications and media relations professionals from colleges, universities and athletic conferences at all divisions of competition in the United States and Canada.

"Congratulations to an outstanding class of CoSIDA award winners who share a common passion and dedication to our profession and college athletics," said 2019-20 CoSIDA President Herb Vincent, Associate Commissioner for Communications at the Southeastern Conference. "We are excited about the opportunity to recognize these individuals at our annual convention this summer and celebrate their many and varied accomplishments. 

"Our CoSIDA member award winners are being recognized for their impact on our industry and their professionalism in executing their craft. We also congratulate our award winners from outside our organization who will be recognized for their contributions to intercollegiate athletics and for their commitment to the ideals and mission of CoSIDA." 

Highlighting the 2020 honorees are six new CoSIDA Hall of Fame inductees:

• Blake Timm – Great Northwest Athletic Conference, Assistant Commissioner for Communications
• Bob Beretta – West Point, Senior Associate Athletic Director/Strategic Initiatives
• Kent Cherrington – Lasell University, Director of Athletic Communications
• Doug Hauschild – University of Dayton, Director of Athletic Communications
• Joe Mitch – Missouri Valley Conference, Retired Sports Information Director / United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA), Retired Executive Director
• David Worlock – NCAA, Director of Media Coordination and Statistics

Each of these six inductees will join their predecessors on the CoSIDA Hall of Fame plaques that are on permanent display at the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis. The 2020 inductees will be honored at 7 p.m. (ET) on Tuesday with a prerecorded video on the CoSIDA YouTube page.

Here's a closer look at the CoSIDA Hall of Fame Class of 2020.

Blake Timm – Great Northwest Athletic Conference
Serving CoSIDA in many ways.

Blake Timm is in his fifth year as the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's Assistant Commissioner for Communications. Timm joined the NCAA Division II conference in July 2015 after spending 16 years as sports information director at Pacific University. At Pacific, he was responsible for the media operations, publicity and game operations for Pacific's 24-sport, NCAA Division III program.

In June 2017, Timm was honored by the CoSIDA with its Warren Berg Award, the college division's highest honor for outstanding service and commitment to athletic communications. He served six years on CoSIDA's Board of Directors and six years as a member of the College Division Management Advisory Committee. Past chair of the former Membership Services Committee, Timm also has served on the Academic All-America committee and currently serves on the Special Awards Committee.

Timm received the Excellence in Communications award from the U.S. Track and Field & Cross Country Coaches Association and is a two-time winner of the Jack Sareault Award as the Northwest Conference's Sports Information Director of the Year. His work has also been recognized by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, USA Volleyball and Swimming World magazine.

Said Dave Haglund, commissioner of the GNAC: "This is a tremendous and well-deserved recognition for Blake, who has provided exceptional media relations services throughout his career both in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and at Pacific (Ore.) University.  Student-athletes, coaches, administrators, media members and fans have all benefited from the intensive dedication he has given to his craft. CoSIDA has made a superb choice in bestowing Blake with the organization's highest honor." 
 

Bob Beretta – West Point
More than 30 years of duty, honor, country. 

Bob Beretta has served the Army athletic department for 32 years and is in his 18th year of serving on the senior leadership team, overseeing the athletic department's external operations ventures to include sport supervision, team and game operations, corporate sponsorship, Army-Navy operations and all Army football bowl activities. As the Senior Associate Athletic Director/Strategic Initiatives, Beretta also oversees maintenance of the athletic department's strategic plan, while holding positions on the Patriot League Sport Management Committee, Army-Navy Steering Committee and the Atlantic Hockey Association Executive Committee, among others.

Over his career, Beretta has overseen West Point's athletic communications, marketing, multi-media, broadcasting, new media and publicity efforts for the Black Knights' 28 intercollegiate athletic teams. He also previously led the department's Hall of Fame selection, national television rights, fundraising, donor relations, ticket sales, development and revenue generation initiatives as well as supervising sports.

Active on the conference and national level, Beretta was a member of the NCAA Hockey Rules Committee, served on the Atlantic Hockey Association Executive Committee and the Patriot League Sport Management Committee. He was a past president of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Sports Information Directors of America (ECAC-SIDA) and served on the organization's executive board for more than two decades. He was presented with the ECAC-SIDA Irving T. Marsh Award in the spring of 2010 and the Pete Nevins Award for Distinguished Achievement in June 2014.

Kent Cherrington – Lasell
A pioneer in computerized statistics.

Kent Cherrington has more than 30 years of service to sports information, beginning with his student assistant days in the sports information office at the University of New Hampshire. He previously served as the SID at Plymouth State University and Anna Maria College. Since 2018, he has been the Director of Athletic Communications at Lasell University.

Cherrington also spent many seasons doing radio color commentary and play-by-play for ice hockey, while also being heard as a pregame and postgame contributor for football and basketball. He was among the first in the nation to use in-game computerized statistics programs in the late 1980s and also developed one of the first comprehensive athletic department websites in the country.

An active member of CoSIDA, Cherrington served as a College Division representative on the Board of Directors from 2007-10. In addition, he was a member of the College Division Management Advisory Committee, Academic All-America Hall of Fame Selection Committee and the former Workshop (convention) Program Committee. Cherrington also served on the ECAC-SIDA Board of Directors and was the president of the organization in 2006-07. In 2010, he was honored by ECAC-SIDA with the Irving T. Marsh Award for outstanding service and commitment to the profession. 

Doug Hauschild – Dayton
A Flyer for life.

Doug Hauschild has been a University of Dayton Flyer his entire life, serving his alma mater since his graduation in 1981. In his role as Director of Athletic Communications, he is the primary athletics communications contact for football and men's basketball and also serves as the chair of the Dayton Athletics Hall of Fame committee.

Hauschild started his career as the Flyers' head softball coach and still holds the school record for career winning percentage - yet he has made his mark by recording history instead of making it.

As a gameday host, Hauschild has helped raise the profile of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball "First Four," a series of tournament play-in games that began in 2011. Dayton has played host to those First Four games each year. Hauschild has served the media coordinator for 103 NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournament games at UD Arena since 1982. He also was part of a tournament hosting team at Dayton that made NCAA men's basketball history in March 2001 by hosting 10 postseason NCAA and NIT games in eight days the Flyers' arena, a feat never before done in college basketball.

Hauschild has been a member of the CoSIDA Academic All-America Committee since 1993. He was honored at the 2009 CoSIDA Convention as that year's Bob Kenworthy Community Service Award winner for his civic involvement and volunteerism in the community.

Joe Mitch – Missouri Valley Conference/USBWA (retired)
A basketball legend. 

Joe Mitch served 50 years in college athletics, including 27 years with the Missouri Valley Conference, before retiring in 2012. Mitch was sports information director at three institutions - Illinois-Chicago Circle (1968-70), Dayton (1973-75) and St. Louis (1975-76). He had served as an assistant SID at Southern Illinois for three years before joining the Metro Conference in 1976.

Mitch also had a great impact on the game of college basketball as he served 36 years as Executive Director of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association from 1983 to 2019, helping grow that association from a group of 200-plus members to more than 900 journalists and sportswriters covering college basketball. He also was editor of the association's Tipoff newsletter for several years.

At the Valley, Mitch served as tournament director for the MVC men's basketball tournament that annually ranked in the top 10 nationally in attendance among Division I conferences. Overall, he was involved in various capacities in 44 straight NCAA Final Fours. Mitch also worked the 1983 Davis Cup tennis quarterfinals, the 1977 Intercontinental Cup basketball series and served as a media relations officer at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1994 U. S. Olympic Festival in St. Louis.

Among his other honors, Mitch was honored with a CoSIDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. He earned the 2019 Cliff Wells Appreciation Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and will be inducted into the USBWA Hall of Fame - which he helped found - during the 2020 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Final Four in Atlanta.

David Worlock – NCAA
Your men's NCAA Basketball Final Four guru. 

David Worlock has served at the NCAA for nearly 19 years after beginning his athletic communications career as a campus sports information director.

Worlock currently serves as the NCAA Director of Media Coordination and Statistics, holding that position since 2013. Worlock and his staff are responsible for providing daily statistics, records, championships records, championships selections support, game program content and editing, and media coordination for the NCAA's 90 championships.

Worlock works primarily with men's basketball and is the media coordinator for the Division I men's basketball championship. At the largest championship for the NCAA, Worlock is responsible for all of the media coordination for all rounds of the tournament from first rounds through the Final Four.

Since starting at the NCAA in 2001, Worlock served as assistant director of statistics (2001-06) before becoming the associate director for D1 men's basketball then associate director of media coordination prior to his current leadership position.

A CoSIDA member since 1993, Worlock began his career as Sports Information Director at his alma mater, Division II Henderson State University. He served as SID from 1993-2001 prior to joining the NCAA.

Worlock was a past member of the CoSIDA writing contest committee. He annually meets with the organization's leadership group at the NCAA headquarters to discuss strategy and initiatives, and during the CoSIDA conventions, he and his staff hold training sessions on statistics and championships. Worlock is a member of the selection panel for the Curt Gowdy Media Award and is a past member of the Harlon Hill Award selection committee.