Chris Masters, associate director of athletics media relations at Notre Dame, has been elected to the Board of Directors for the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), the 2,900-member organization announced during its annual convention June 12-15 in Orlando.

Chris Masters Elected To CoSIDA Board Of Directors

June 21, 2013

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Chris Masters, associate director of athletics media relations at the University of Notre Dame, was recently selected to a three-year term as an at-large representative on the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Board of Directors. Masters was elected to the post earlier this month at the annual CoSIDA Convention. This year’s workshop took place June 12-15 in conjunction with the NACDA & Affiliates Convention Week at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Fla.

Masters becomes the first Notre Dame representative to serve on the CoSIDA Board since legendary Irish sports information director (and 1981 CoSIDA Hall of Fame inductee) Roger Valdiserri in the late 1980’s. Valdiserri, in fact, was CoSIDA president during the 1986-87 school year.

Shelly Poe, assistant athletics director for media relations at Auburn University, will serve as the organization’s president during the upcoming 2013-14 school year. Also elected to serve the 2,900-member CoSIDA organization for the 2013-14 term and in the presidential rotation are: First Vice President Eric McDowell (Union College (N.Y.) Assistant Athletic Director/Sports Information); Second Vice President Judy Willson (Mountain West Conference Associate Director of Communications); and Third Vice President Andy Seeley (Assistant Athletics Director for Communications at the University of Central Florida).

In addition to Masters’ election, three others were elected to terms of three years on the CoSIDA Board of Directors: Chevanne Mansfield (Southeastern Conference), Dave Walters (Guilford College) and Steve Fleigel (Whitworth College). All these terms run through 2016.

Masters is in his 13th year on the athletic media relations staff at Notre Dame, and his fourth as associate director. He is the primary media relations contact for the Fighting Irish women’s basketball and women’s soccer programs, and also serves as the on-site content editor for the official Notre Dame athletics web site (UND.com), helping to coordinate extensive redesigns of the site in the summers of 2009 and 2011, while currently overseeing a 10-person student staff that includes five web editors and five photographers.

In addition, he has spent time as the media relations contact for the University’s men’s and women’s tennis, men’s golf and men’s and women’s cross country/track & field programs, while serving as the secondary contact for the Fighting Irish football program. He remains connected with the publicity efforts for the Notre Dame football team as a supervisor of the gameday statistics crew at Notre Dame Stadium and a liaison with the NCAA statistics office in Indianapolis.

During his tenure at Notre Dame, Masters has promoted six NCAA Final Four squads (the 2010 national champion women’s soccer team, as well as the 2008 women’s soccer and 2011 and 2012 women’s basketball national runners-up, and the 2009 women’s soccer and 2013 women’s basketball national semifinalists) and 11 BIG EAST Conference championship teams.

He also has successfully promoted 10 basketball players and seven soccer players for a total of 23 All-America honors (including four-time All-America basketball player/two-time Nancy Lieberman Award recipient Skylar Diggins, 2008 Hermann Trophy recipient Kerri Hanks and 2010 Honda Sports Award [women’s soccer] recipient Melissa Henderson), and earned 20 national or regional citations for his publications from CoSIDA, most recently garnering national runner-up honors for his 2012 women’s soccer media guide (the second No. 2 placement in three years) and a fifth-place national citation for his 2012-13 women’s basketball media guide. In addition, he has worked as a play-by-play broadcaster on radio broadcasts and Internet webcasts of Irish women’s basketball, volleyball and softball contests.

Masters also has collected considerable experience as a tournament media coordinator, overseeing publicity efforts at the 2005 and 2010 NCAA Men’s Golf Central Regional, the 2011 NCAA Women’s Golf Central Regional and the 2008 BIG EAST Women’s Soccer Championship, all hosted by Notre Dame. What’s more, he has served on the media relations staff at nine NCAA Women’s Final Fours since 1998, and was the official scorer at four BIG EAST Softball Championships (2007, 2010-12), and the 2012 NCAA Softball Regional hosted by the University of Louisville.

Prior to coming to Notre Dame, Masters spent three years (1998-2001) as assistant sports information director at Western Kentucky University, serving as the media relations contact for the Lady Topper women’s basketball and volleyball programs. He also spent time as the publications coordinator for WKU’s entire 20-sport athletics department, successfully promoted two women’s basketball All-Americans, assisted in the development of the school’s official athletics web site (wkusports.com), and served as media relations coordinator for the 2000 Sun Belt Conference Women’s Basketball Championship, hosted by Western Kentucky.

In 1996, Masters graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and politics & government from Ohio Wesleyan University, while also serving as a student assistant in the OWU sports information office. Two years later, he earned his master’s degree in mass communications (public relations emphasis) from Kansas State University, where he also worked in the KSU sports information office as both a student assistant and graduate intern, specifically focusing on the Wildcats’ women’s basketball and volleyball programs.

An active member of CoSIDA since 1996, Masters is in his 15th year as a district coordinator on the CoSIDA Academic All-America Committee. He also is a member of the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA).

— ND —