LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – In voting done among members of the respective peer councils, Trinity University was honored as Athletic Training Staff of the Year and Texas Lutheran University was voted Sports Information Staff of the Year.
The Sports Information Staff of the Year award began prior to the 2016-17 season, while the Athletic Training Staff of the Year award was introduced ahead of the 2012-2013 season.
The Trinity athletic training department is made up of four staff members: Marc Powell, the Head Athletic Trainer, Meghan Lovell, the Associate Athletic Trainer, and Assistant Athletic Trainers Ashley Martinez and Brent McKinsey.
Powell served as the chair of the Athletic Trainers Council this year and helped facilitate weekly and biweekly meetings throughout the 2020-21 academic year as the conference's ATC played a huge role in preparing, faciliatating and, once the league made the decision to move forward with competition in all 19 of its sponsored sports in the spring semester, putting into action the league's COVID Response protocols. Powell also served on the SCAC COVID Action Committee, a group that was formed to assist the league office on "return to play" questions once competition began in mid January.
Powell and the Trinity campus also spearheaded and helped facilitate the compilation and dissemination of data related to positivity rates within each program on each campus (per the league's testing protocol program). This endeavor was undertaken to provide transparency across the conference via an interactive dashboard that was made available to each member institution prior to each week's scheduled competition.
"I believe everyone involved in the SCAC would agree that this was the most challenging year any of us have ever experienced," said SCAC Commissioner Dwayne Hanberry. "There was no playbook on how to deal with a global pandemic as we looked for ways to safely compete in 2020-21. Marc's leadership within the Athletic Trainers Council and his willingness to assist my office with all the intricacies involved in fulfilling our COVID protocol obligations was invaluable. I would be remiss if I didn't recognize and acknowledge our entire group of athletic trainers - that group went above and beyond the call of duty all year. Our league owes a great deal of gratitude to them and the service they provided this past year and every year."
The Texas Lutheran University sports information department was honored as Staff of the Year for the second consecutive year. Made up of two staff members: Tim Clark, Director of Sports Information and Sports Marketing, and Joey Dearing, Assistant Director of Sports Information/Sports Marketing, the group handled media coverage and hosting duties for the SCAC Women's Soccer Tournament as well as the SCAC Men's and Women's Track & Field Championships - both of which were conducted over the same weekend.
In the strange and condensed COVID-19 semester of 2021, Clark led the Office of Sports Information and Sports Marketing as it handled game-day management, statistics, public address announcing, video streaming, and other duties for 91 home games and events over a 106-day period. In that same time frame, the office produced 525 social media graphics and made a combined 1,575 social media posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The office also wrote 342 stories about TLU Athletics.
Clark, who just completed his 23rd year as the Bulldogs' chief athletics communicator and sports marketer, announced his plans to leave his post at the end of July and to return to school full-time and pursue a master's degree in data analytics.
"Beyond the incredible work that he and his staff did this past year, it can not be overstated how much the SCAC will miss Tim Clark," said SCAC Associate Commissioner Russell Kramer. "Anytime the league had a championship scheduled to be hosted by TLU, we knew we didn't have to worry about the stats, or the video or the information getting to the membership. Tim was more than the SID at Texas Lutheran, he was an extension of our office - when any event was being hosted by TLU, we knew the job was going to get done and done well."
