A&M-Commerce welcomes new sports information director

The void left by the departed Sports Information Director Danny Kambel has been filled by the A&M-Commerce Athletics Department. Rand Champion comes to A&M-Commerce with a wealth of experience from larger institutions.

"I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and spent most of my life there," Champion said. "I graduated from BYU in 2002 with a broadcast journalism major because I wanted to do the traditional sports anchor, and actually right out of school I took a job in Corpus Cristie working for a T.V. station.

Champion spent three years at CBS affiliate KZTV-10, working as a reporter during the week and anchoring on the weekends. He said one day, his news director explained to him the future of the profession looked fairly bleak, so Champion began to consider an alternative career.

"With ESPN and with everything else that's going on, you look at local sports broadcasting now and they are thirty seconds long and it's nothing but national highlights," Champion said. "So, I thought about it and I talked to a lot of good friends that are sports information directors and I have always been someone who has liked doing visual things, liked design and, of course, I have always liked sports and been kind of a numbers geek and doing stats."

This lead him to go back to college at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., to get a master's in sports administration. Champion said this "was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made," because of the experience he obtained.

"The best part about it was I got to do internships with the Titans while I was there," he said. "I got to do internships with Vanderbilt, got to continue to do the play-by-play, which I wanted to do, and I did the internship with Tennessee State and did the play-by-play for their women's basketball team, so it was really cool."

Gaining this experience did not come without a price, as Champion had to work his way through the year-long program.

"It was the hardest year of my life but I loved it, loved Nashville," he said. "I was working at Sears, the worst job I have ever had. I was doing that in the morning from seven to four, and then I would come home, grab dinner real quick and turn around and go to class every night."

Champion got his first experience in media relations in an internship with Vanderbilt University, and he was actively pursuing a permanent job in the field. After asking around for any job openings, he found a spot at North Dakota State University where he stayed for seven months.

The next stop for Champion was Northwestern University in Illinois, where he served as an assistant director of athletic communication and worked with the five-time NCAA champion women's lacrosse team.

"I had actually applied for a job at Northwestern when I was getting ready to be done with grad school and the position got filled," he said. "Then another person in their department left and so they started shuffling things around and they needed someone to do lacrosse and I had done that at Vanderbilt. One day in December, I got a phone call from Northwestern that said ‘Hey are you still interested' and I was definitely still interested."

The deciding factor that enticed Champion to A&M-Commerce was the future the athletics administration sees for the department.

"I had lived here before and we had always loved Texas," Champion said. "And we had always wanted to come back so I was looking around one day and saw that there was an opening here and figured ‘what the heck lets go for it.' I came down here and saw Carrolton [Cooper]'s vision of what he wants to turn this into, and he is a great salesman. He got me hooked so we decided to take it. I have been here a month now and it's awesome so far."

Champion arrived just as basketball was ending, and is now dealing with the golf and track and field teams as they continue their spring schedules. While he admits this is a bit of a "slow time", he is eager to enter the fall.

"I'm sure come October I'll be stressed out and second thinking my decision, but I'm really enjoying it," he said. "Obviously we are a division two school but that doesn't mean we can't conduct our program the same way a division one program does. There are a lot of things that they did well here before and hopefully a couple of the background and things that I have done can come in here and take A&M-Commerce a little further."

Rand said while he loves the fact that he can work in sports, it is the people on the teams and behind the scenes that make his job worthwhile.

"I think the thing I love about this the most is just getting out and being able to meet the student athletes and coaches," he said. "I always kid people that I hope I don't ever lose this job because then I would have to find a real job for a living. You get to cover football, basketball, volleyball and soccer; that's your job and that's what people do when they get off work saying ‘I want to go to the football game,' well that is my job."