CoSIDA Member Profile: Jeff Kelly – Austin College Director of Athletics Communications
College Sports Information Directors of America
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This feature is part of our series of profiles showcasing members throughout the CoSIDA membership during the celebration of CoSIDA Membership Recognition Week for 2019. See more features at CoSIDA.com/ThankYourSID.
Jeff Kelly – Austin College, Director of Athletics Communications
by Nathan Yacovissi – University of Dallas, Sports Information Manager
Jeff Kelly is in his 15th year at Austin College. A 2003 graduate of Syracuse University, Kelly was named the Austin’s Director of Athletics Communications in 2016, after having served as the Sports Information Coordinator for the ‘Roos since 2005. Jeff oversees 18 NCAA Division III sponsored sports as a “one-man shop,” which includes the recent addition of water polo competing in its first season in the spring of 2019. He was selected as the 2018-19 Collegiate Water Polo Association Women’s Division III Sports Information Director of the Year. Kelly was recognized for achieving notable excellence in the field of water polo communications as the women’s team advanced to the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Division III Championship title game during the inaugural year of varsity water polo at the institution. Kelly also is a member of the CoSIDA U Committee.
Kelly (second from right) as part of Team Autism Awareness at the CoSIDA/NACDA 5K this past summer during the June conventions in Orlando.
With son Conor while Kelly was working a football game.
Do you have any key mentors or people who deeply influenced who you are, what you believe in and what you’re committed to in your work and life?
I’ve had a couple people who have really influenced me in this profession. From a purely professional standpoint, someone I continue to be grateful to is Dawn Harmon, who gave me my first job in the business when I was fresh out of college and became an intern at the NAIA national office. I’d done sportswriting in high school and grown up on what was then an NAIA campus, but was pretty green when it came to the sports information world. Dawn was great when it came to teaching me what this profession is really all about.
My other big mentor is my father, Tim Kelly. He wore pretty much every hat you can think of in college athletics: athletics director, sports information director, men’s basketball coach, women’s soccer coach, natatorium director, and so on, and so on. He was the men’s basketball/women’s soccer coach, SID, and assistant AD at (formerly) Lyndon State College in Vermont back in the 1990s, and then was the AD and coach of a more sports at Mt. Aloysius in Pennsylvania before leaving the business.
Meanwhile, he also managed to run my youth basketball league, coach my AAU team, and also coach my Little League team, among other things. Knowing what I know now about how time intensive even one of those things is, it boggles my mind that he was able to accomplish all of those things (keeping in mind he coached hoops and soccer while also serving as an SID simultaneously). I probably never would have even considered the field of sports information had he not first been part of this world, but then also suggested I look into it after I’d graduated from Syracuse without any real idea about what I wanted to do with my life.
But I’ve always loved writing, I’ve always loved sports, and I’ve been weirdly obsessed with statistics all of my life (when my dad ran that youth basketball league, we kept the scorebooks at home, and one day when I was home sick from school during sixth grade, I decided to figure out the scoring averages of all 60 players in the league, just for kicks), so he was able to point me in this particular direction.
Do you have any favorite quotes?
“How you do anything is how you do everything” is one quote I’ve always enjoyed, but at the end of the day, I might just have to go with “The Dude abides."
What might (someone) be surprised to know about you?
I guess what may be surprising to many people who have met me and failed to laugh at my many, many terrible jokes is that I’ve had a solid amount of comedy writing published, both online and then in print. About 10 years or so ago I did some freelance comedy writing that wound up accumulating well over 10 million views online and some of that ended up being part of a book that became a New York Times bestseller in the “non-fiction comedy” genre.
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06/23/26 / 11:59 P.M.
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06/30/26 / 11:59 P.M.
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M At-Large Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
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M Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA)
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2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
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2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
06/09/26 / 11:59 P.M.
Baseball Academic All-America National Ballot Voting Deadline (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
06/10/26 / All Day
2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
06/16/26 / 12:00 P.M.
Softball Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA)
06/16/26 / 12:00 P.M.
M/W At-Large Academic All-District Released; National Voting Begins (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
06/16/26 / 11:59 P.M.
M/W Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-America Nomination Deadline (NCAA, NAIA)
06/23/26 / 12:00 P.M.
M/W Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-District Released; National Voting Begins (NCAA, NAIA)
06/23/26 / 12:00 P.M.
Baseball Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA)
06/23/26 / 11:59 P.M.
M/W At-Large Academic All-America National Ballot Voting Deadline (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
06/30/26 / 11:59 P.M.
M/W Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-America National Ballot Voting Deadline (NCAA, NAIA)
07/07/26 / 12:00 P.M.
W At-Large Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
07/08/26 / 12:00 P.M.
M At-Large Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA, College Division)
07/14/26 / 12:00 P.M.
M Track & Field/Cross Country Academic All-America Announced (NCAA, NAIA)
06/07/26 / All Day
2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
06/08/26 / All Day
2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
06/09/26 / All Day
2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
06/09/26 / 11:59 P.M.
Baseball Academic All-America National Ballot Voting Deadline (NCAA, NAIA)
06/10/26 / All Day
2026 CSC Unite Convention in Las Vegas
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