This fall, INFLCR is highlighting our clients across college athletics, and their successes and lessons learned empowering athletes on social the past year. Thanks to these featured clients for not only empowering your athletes, but also being champions of the INFLCR app and platform!
In this Q&A, we’re featuring Tom Symonds, Assistant AD – Strategic Communications at Tulane University.
What was your journey to get to this point in your career?
Over my 15-year career in athletics, I have had the opportunity to work in the communication offices with the Detroit Lions, Big East Conference, Horizon League and University of Rhode Island, Ohio University and University of Miami.
I got into the field of communications after working in the athletics communications office at The Ohio State University.
What are the top 3 pieces of career advice you have?
- Be a team player
- Be coachable
- Have a never-ending quest to learn more about the industry
How has COVID-19 impacted your current role?
COVID-19 has played a major role in how we handle our day-to-day activities and it has forced our staff to think outside the box on we get the word out on our student-athletes.
Sure, there have been challenges, but it has also been refreshing to see how our teams, coaches and staff members have been able to step up in the face of adversity.
What are some of the changes and how have you adapted to continue executing your responsibilities?
Truthfully, our staff has been able to maintain a strong level of content similar to what we have pushed out in the past and in some cases, we have even even done more, but we have certainly had our challenges.
The implementation of doing interviews with players and coaches over Zoom has certainly allowed our group to push out more content on a daily basis.
Aside from INFLCR, what is one thing that makes your job easier for you?
Having coaches that are truly committed to enhancing the overall exposure of our brand is truly what makes my job easy.
At Tulane, we are really fortunate to have some great coaches that are very accessible and who truly care about getting the most favorable message out about our teams.
If you could change one thing about the content industry, what would that be?
Giving student-athletes more access to television game highlights for them to post on their social media platforms.
Photos and video are so widely circulated to student-athletes at the institutional level, so I think it would make all the sense in the world to allow student-athletes more access to television highlights to grow the exposure of the networks and the games themselves.
Keep up with Tom:
Twitter: @Tom_Symonds
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