Four years ago, conference sports information directors attended a Division III-hosted meeting on Cape Cod to review ways in which the NCAA national office and SIDs assist each other in publicizing those leagues and the Association.

Today, eight of those SIDs have been hired as conference commissioners, illustrating a trend worth noting in the Association’s largest membership division.

More than one-third of the division’s 42 multisport conferences now are led by commissioners who have a sports information background, including a handful who serve dual roles as commissioner and conference SID.

The NCAA national office and the Division III Commissioners Association hosted another gathering of league SIDs last month in Indianapolis, and that group took time during a panel discussion to consider how conference sports information operations have evolved in recent years – and why SIDs increasingly are the go-to choice when a conference is looking for a new leader.

Full-time staffing is a relatively recent phenomenon among Division III conferences, and even before leagues began hiring full-time commissioners, they typically asked the sports information director at a league school to serve as SID for the conference, says one of six commissioners who participated as panelists during the Indianapolis meeting.

“I would say the SID predated the commissioner in most cases, but that SID was an SID at an institution,” said Donna Ledwin, who was an athletics director when she was named commissioner of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. She also took on the league’s sports information role and continues to perform both functions today.

“Folks started realizing, maybe that’s not such a great idea, having the SID at an institution picking players of the week, when their players are in the mix,” she said. “Maybe we need a separate SID for the conference office. So that came along…then you have a conference office where maybe one person wore two hats, and then evolved into two people – maybe one was full time and one was part time.

“Really, what’s driven most of this is the NCAA’s expectations of the conference office in Division III. It’s not that we suddenly decided this is what we needed to do…There was a day when each institution filed its own (game statistics) with the NCAA, and now it goes through the conference office. Compliance has become another area that definitely is being driven through the conference office.”

Now, about half of Division III conferences have a full-time SID as well as full-time commissioner, but not many conferences SIDs do only sports information work.

“When I was hired in 1999, my boss then had been at the conference for well over 10 years, and he wore two hats – he was SID and commissioner,” said Daniel McKane, who in 2005 succeeded longtime Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Executive Director Carlyle Carter as the league’s administrator. “Now when I look at it, I don’t know how I would handle (serving both roles).”

McKane said today’s commissioners “definitely have to delegate” responsibilities to another staff member, and in most conferences, that means the person holding the title of sports information director.

SIDs’ willingness to seek and take on such duties only can make them more attractive as candidates for commissioner positions, according to participants in the panel discussion.

“If your commissioner departs, chances are the people in your conference are probably going to look internally first to fill the position, and if they feel you’re qualified for the job, then they might not have to go any further than that,” said Skyline Conference Commissioner Tracy King, who previously served as the league’s SID and (like the AMCC’s Ledwin) now serves in a dual role.

King urged conference SIDs interested in moving up a rung to become acquainted with administrators at league schools, seek out duties ranging from scheduling to championships administration to compliance, and be knowledgeable about conference and national athletics issues.

“It pays to have knowledge in a lot of areas as opposed to expertise in one or two areas, because commissioners are involved in so many different aspects,” said St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Commissioner Will Wolper, who was the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s sports information director when he applied for the SLIAC position.

“As long as you know something about a situation, or know what resources to utilize to get through a situation, that’s going to be a lot more valuable than being an expert in rules compliance,” he said.

Wolper and McKane were among the eight league SIDs-turned-commissioners who attended the Cape Cod meeting four years ago, as was Amy Carlton, who now is commissioner of the American Southwest Conference.

Carlton sought opportunities to help with league and NCAA tournaments as a campus SID, then benefited from the experience of her predecessor, Fred Jacoby, who hired her as the ASC’s conference sports information director but took time to teach her other aspects of conference administration.

“The more experiences you have, and the variety of experiences…come back to help you out some day, and will give you the background and foundation for what you need to do,” she said. “Ask questions, be involved, get drafted.”

Midwest Conference Commissioner Chris Graham, another panelist who once served as a conference SID, believes the sports information role itself is becoming more attractive in Division III, and not just for the opportunity it offers for advancement.

“I would hope the salaries have increased and the benefits have increased,” said Graham, who received more than 250 applications for a conference SID position he filled this summer.

As SIDs become more valuable to conference operations, it’s also likely their titles will change to better reflect the duties they perform, Ledwin suggested.

“Pretty soon, we’re not going to be calling you conference SIDs,” she told the group in Indianapolis. “You’re going to be assistant commissioners with SID responsibilities, but I think there’s going to be more of the compliance piece. You might be more involved with your (student-athlete advisory committee).

“I think as more of these positions become full time, I think they will flesh out as more than sports information, because we need that help as commissioners.”

That, naturally, might further boost the number of Division III conference commissioners who started out writing news releases and compiling statistics.

“There are a number of us who are former SIDs and would be happy to see that trend continue, of sports information directors moving on to become commissioners,” Wolper said.