The 2021 spring semester was one of the most stressful semesters for a lot of people.
That rang true for many on the Colorado Mesa University (CMU) campus, and the Sports Information Department (SID) was among them. They had 12 sports to cover due to sports like both men’s and women’s soccer along with volleyball being pushed to the spring season.
That meant they had to work a lot of days that featured three events; that is the maximum amount they schedule in one day.
“Having the fall sports pretty much moved to the spring where spring is already a pretty busy time of year for us, adding men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball on top of it, that was extremely hard to just manage all those events in one day,” The Director of the SID Dave Jahnke said. “We never had a day where it was more than anything we’ve ever had before, the most we’ve ever done on a day is three events at the same time. It was never more than that, it was just something that may happen one time a year, and it happened almost every weekend.”
Jahnke said that they wouldn’t have gotten through it without his coworkers. Assistant SID Chris Day and Graduate Assistant Erin Perez round out the department and both had experience running a SID prior to coming to CMU.
“Everybody else in the conference calls Chris ‘The Cheat Code’ because he truly is the cheat code. He is a part-time employee that works full-time hours and does what he does. He won those awards at Adams [State University] when he was the full-time book guy at Adams before he moved here. So I’m very fortunate to have someone with Chris’s experience in the office too, and his knowledge is incredible,” Jahnke said.
“To have Erin in a Grad Assistant role, where she was a Sports Information Director at Western New Mexico for two or three years before, that’s invaluable. To have this team, during those times, I don’t know if we could’ve done it without everybody.”
Jahnke, Day and Perez write articles, work stats and organize events. They write event previews for every event they can during the week and then spend the weekend writing recaps for those events. They also communicate with the local radio stations, TV stations and publications to organize media scrums each week.
“Really, they have a big tremendous job that they have to do. There are so many sports and that’s the biggest thing; they try to make every sport feel good and promote them as best they can. I know they have done that for our program and the successes that we’ve had, they’ve always been a part of that and helped us make it a better experience for the student-athletes,” Women’s Basketball Head Coach Taylor Wagner said.
Jahnke has been able to form unique relationships in Grand Junction while working at CMU, specifically with Patti Arnold of the Daily Sentinel. If you are in a room with them, sit back and relax as they gab about the sports world mixed in with jokes that make the entire room erupt in laughter.
“For us, it’s really unique because at Metro they don’t have this. At Mines, they don’t have what we have, they don’t have two TV stations covering them, they don’t have two radio stations covering them. They don’t have a newspaper with a beat writer that is at every practice and game. So it’s really unique and to have that relationship with the local media is important. I think that’s why this job in particular is good and it’s a good spot for a grad assistant or interns because you have those outlets with you. You have to have that interaction, that communication with them and you don’t get that everywhere. […] I think that’s why this is a good job and a good jumping off place for interns and grad assistants because you get that interaction and you have to communicate with them,” Jahnke said.
With 12 sports requiring coverage, the department found new ways to organize what needed to be done. That came in the form of a spreadsheet to designate all the workers needed for an event. The spreadsheet was brought back in the fall semester, and it’s something the department plans to continue to use going forward.
“I think moving forward, just making sure that we’re organized and that every event is covered, that’s the biggest thing I’ll take away. My spreadsheets are something that I built last year when all hell was breaking loose pretty much, and that’s something that I’ll take moving forward and keep doing moving forward because it does help keep us organized. I can find out where our holes are and what we need to plugin, and so I would say that’s the biggest takeaway from last semester. Looking back, it’s probably knowing that we can do it, whatever challenges are thrown in front of us. We can do it, we’ve done it,” Jahnke said.
The department gets contributions from part-time employees and interns as well, but the written content comes from Jahnke, Day and Perez. The other employees get their work in forms like commentators, photographers, statisticians and scoreboard workers.
Working with student-athletes can be a lot of fun, but it also comes with seeing a lot of heartbreak as well. Jahnke recalled a time at the men’s wrestling national championships when they announced the tournament was canceled. He said seeing the sadness from not just CMU athletes, but from everyone in the room was one of the toughest things he’s seen in his career.
“One of the hardest things and I’ll never forget it was being at the wrestling championships when it was announced that they were canceled. To see the look on a lot of those athletes’ faces. That had never been to the national championships before and that was the last time and they weren’t getting their year back. To know they were done just like that, that was hard. That was really hard. It’s not just our athletes, it was all hundred or so of them,” Jahnke said.
It’s not always sad news for the SID Staff as they have seen a lot of highs over the years at CMU. Campus hosted nine different Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) Tournaments just last year.
“It felt pretty good because we felt like we did a really good job, and to be rewarded like that. To have nine championships that we had to cover and to host from February all the way until mid-May with baseball, and to have a tournament every weekend from the second weekend in April all the way to mid-May, I think we had a tournament every single weekend,” Jahnke said. “To cover it the way we did, to host those events the way we did, and to successfully cover that all while dealing with COVID protocols in every single one. Looking back, I hope we never have to do that again, but it was pretty rewarding knowing that we got through it as a department, and everyone pitching in to help out, they all seemed to run pretty smoothly.”
To stay up to date with CMU Athletics and the SID Staff’s coverage of each event, visit
