It’s no secret that Sam Montgomery is a fixture in the opponent’s backfield on Saturday nights.
Or that Kevin Gausman’s fastball was one of the finest Alex Box Stadium has ever seen.
But it may surprise some to learn that Gausman’s father was a Pac-10 football referee before he retired, or that Montgomery is an avid comic book reader.
After perusing the award-winning media guides produced by the LSU Sports information directors and publications director, these facts and more shed a different light on Tiger athletes beyond just their jersey numbers.
Associate Sports Information Director Bill Martin said that while some programs have abandoned printing the books, LSU’s prestige and passionate fan base doesn’t allow the SID’s to conform with the trend.
“If you look at the trend in college athletics today, a lot of schools aren’t printing media guides,” Martin said. “Being the prominent program that we are, fans buy them. So when you buy season tickets, you have an opportunity to buy media guides as well.”
Typically used for reporters and television analysts when covering teams, the media guides provide everything from detailed biographies to archaic results, dating back to the 1940s.
Publications Director Jason Feirman and his team, comprised of mostly student workers, design the media guides – limited to 208 pages by NCAA regulations – which have received critical acclaim from the College Sports Information Directors of America for both large and small sports.
“The thing that sets us apart from other schools is we try to make it so every book, no matter what sport, is unique every year,” Feirman said. “Each time someone sees it, they should have a memory of that sport.”
Feirman said the Sports Information Office is constantly working on a cluster of three media guides at a time, and the time frame for finishing them varies. This year, the football guide has a July 17 deadline, the first day of Southeastern Conference media days.
While Feirman continuously evaluates photos after each game or match, Martin said the biographies of the players and history of the program carry over from year to year. More in-depth stories, like Montgomery’s comic book obsession, take extra time to develop.
“When they first get here, every student-athlete fills out a questionnaire,” Martin said. “There are other ideas that we’ll visit with them off the field for.”
After meetings with the sport’s coaching staff, SID staff, and marketing staff, Feirman said he and his team get to work on developing a theme for the media guide, kept under wraps until the day the guides are released to the public.
Next, the staff updates biographies and statistics, followed by the student workers and graphic coordinators working to lay out pages, often working under tight deadlines to get the pages to the printer on time.
Once printed, the guides are shipped to media outlets and are sold to fans when they purchase tickets. Conforming to recent technological trends, only nine sports had books printed last year, with the other sports going straight online.
Martin said the decision on which books to print depends solely on the amount of media coverage and interest that is shown, adding that football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball will always be printed.
The staff brought home numerous CoSIDA Publications Awards in June, with baseball SID Bill Franques, Graphic Coordinator Krystal Bennett and Photography Coordinator Steve Franz bringing home first place for the 2011 baseball media guide.
Softball’s guide also won the top prize, led by SID Matt Dunaway, while men’s basketball placed third, spearheaded by senior associate SID Kent Lowe.
“We just want to be at the top all the time,” Feirman said. “Every once in a while, we’re going to win the top honor.”
Contact Chandler Rome at [email protected].