July 12, 2006

The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) recently completed its annual publications awards and Notre Dame led all schools with 20 official certificates on the national (12) and district (8) level. The honors presented to members of the Notre Dame sports information office include six “best-in-the-nation” certificates – for media guides in baseball, fencing, women’s golf and men’s swimming and diving, plus football gameday program design and men’s ice hockey guide cover. Three other Notre Dame media guides (hockey, men’s soccer and volleyball) were rated second in the nation, as was the Irish postseason football guide.

Texas was second in the overall judging with 17 awards, as Notre Dame continued its long-running success of excellence in sports publications. During the seven years spanning the current decade (1999-2000 – ’05-’06), CoSIDA has presented 134 publications awards to the Notre Dame SID office – including 72 national awards, 31 “best in the nation” and 18 national second-place certificates.

Notre Dame now has received 20 or more publications awards three times this decade, including 22 for 2004-05 and 21 in ’00-’01. The 12 national awards are one shy of the 13 presented to Notre Dame in ’04-’05 while the six first-place honors trail only the seven “best-in-the-nation” awards from 2000-01.

Notre Dame’s 31 first-place national awards during the current decade include top honors for 11 different media guides – fencing (6; ’01-’06), football (2; ’99, ’01), hockey (2; ’99-’00, ’00-’01), men’s lacrosse (2; ’01, ’04), baseball (’06), men’s basketball (’01-’02), women’s golf (’06), men’s swimming and diving (’06), women’s rowing (’02), men’s soccer (’00) and women’s soccer (’00) – plus seven other categories: football program covers (5; ’99, ’00, ’02-’04), football media guide cover (2; ’99, ’03), football game programs (’05), football postseason guide (’00), hockey guide cover (’05-’06), special publication and special publication cover (both for “100 Years of Notre Dame Basketball” in 2005).

The 2005-06 Notre Dame sports information staff included senior associate athletic director John Heisler, sports information director Bernie Cafarelli, associate SID Doug Walker, assistant SIDs Tim Connor, Pete LaFleur, Alan Wasielewski, Chris Masters and Bo Rottenborn, and sports information assistant Sean Carroll. Cindy Lemcke of Ave Maria Press served as the primary designer, with assistance on templates and cover design by Ave Maria’s Kristen Coney and Dave Scholtes.

The SIDs who wrote and edited the respective media guides noted in this release were as follows: Cafarelli (men’s basketball), Walker (football), Connor (hockey, women’s lacrosse), LaFleur (baseball, women’s soccer, fencing), Wasielewski (football, softball), Masters (women’s basketball), Rottenborn (volleyball, tennis) and Carroll (men’s soccer, men’s swimming, men’s lacrosse).

Notre Dame’s other national awards for 2005-06 included sixth-place for the men’s tennis media guide and seventh for women’s tennis. The tennis publications contest – like those in golf and swimming and diving – is conducted as a single contest for guides from both genders.

CoSIDA also presented Notre Dame seven first-place certificates for District V (Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin) in recognition of the media guides for baseball, football, women’s golf, softball, men’s tennis, women’s tennis and volleyball (some categories include only national winners and no district awards). The women’s basketball guide was judged third-best in the district, as was the women’s soccer guide (that contest did not include a certificate for third-place). Among sports that did not award district certificates, the ND media guides for fencing, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse and men’s swimming and diving all received the most voting points in the district while men’s soccer and men’s hockey each were second and men’s basketball was fourth in the district – meaning that 15 of Notre Dame’s 20 media guides were among the top-three at the district level (11 were top-rated in the district).

Other Notre Dame publications results that did not include formal certificates were the men’s lacrosse guide placing sixth nationally while the women’s lacrosse guide was rated 13th among all lacrosse guides and fifth in the national judging for women’s lacrosse guides.