Hello, my name is Peter Schmidt, the new Associate Editor at Sports Planning Guide. I am thrilled to start this new opportunity and look forward to getting to know you and helping to fulfill all of the opportunities in this growing industry.
I came to Premier Travel Media after spending 12 years in collegiate athletics communications as a sports information director, working for three institutions in Pennsylvania.These roles were both rewarding and challenging and those experiences will be very beneficial as I move forward with SPG.
For anywhere between 17-23 sports, my office was responsible for all aspects of publicity, media relations, and communications for the athletic department. Those duties included managing the department’s website and social media accounts, writing post-game and feature stories, creating game programs, providing statistical coverage, public address announcing, photography, and coordinating video streaming at home games, handling media inquiries and interview requests, and maintaining archives and records for all programs.
While these roles made for many long days, nights, and weekends, I got to watch a lot of great sporting events, built many great professional relationships, and most rewarding of all, see student-athletes develop both on the field of play and in the classroom. While I loved seeing our teams win, what I enjoyed most was creating a championship-level game experience for every competition and presenting our teams in the best possible light no matter what the final score was. Just like you!
When I started, the majority of small colleges were playing outdoors on natural grass fields with no lights. By the time I left, the majority of schools had at least one artificial turf field with lights for field sports, with more and more schools adding lighted turf baseball and softball fields. This doesn’t even factor in to upgrades to gymnasiums, training rooms, locker rooms, and more.
My career in athletics grew out of a love of sports dating back to my youth. I enjoyed all of the long weekend trips for travel tournaments and was fortunate to take three long group trips to Europe for soccer tours.
This is more than enough about me. I am looking forward to meeting you, and sharing your story with SPG readers.
Please add me to your press list so I can learn about all the great things you’re working on. And, if you’re attending the Sports ETA Symposium in April, let’s set aside some time to talk.
