For Immediate Release
SEGUIN, Texas — From among more than 150 applicants, Texas Lutheran Sports Information Director Bryce Hayes has been selected as one of six College Sports Communicators to receive the NCAA Inclusion College Sports Communicators UNITE Convention Grant. Hayes is also one of 22 College Sports Communicators (CSC) members selected to receive Convention Attendance Grants and will attend the association’s annual convention June 9-12 at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.
Hayes will be one of 12 recipients attending their first CSC Unite convention. Nine are first-year CSC members and two have five or more years of experience in the profession. The class includes 11 men and 11 women.
This year’s class of recipients will be the ninth to participate. Nearly $140,000 has been distributed to 194 CSC members as reimbursement for convention-related costs over the program’s first eight years.
Each grant includes a complimentary convention registration, allowing the grant funds to go toward hotel nights, transportation and per diem.
Hayes is one of six members from the three NCAA divisions that will attend the convention as part of the NCAA Inclusion Grant program. In the sixth year of partnership between CSC and the NCAA’s Leadership Development and Media Coordination and Statistics staffs, the program’s goal is to advocate for diversity within the athletic communications profession. The program includes a visit to the NCAA national office in August and pairs recipients with a CSC mentor for the upcoming academic year on top of covering registration fees, lodging and transportation.
The selection committee is composed of CSC officers, staff and members of special interest groups within the association.
As part of receiving a grant, each winner will help CSC’s convention operations team with on-site duties and provide written reviews of their experience following the convention.
“When you’re in this role, I’ve never thought I should be the story – as the focus should be on our student-athletes but it’s a tremendous honor to represent Texas Lutheran in this capacity,” said Hayes. “Yesterday was Easter Sunday and in church we talked about how the Lord has the power to deliver and I’ve been blessed to be put in situations to succeed from Bolton High School and everything that entailed, to Rhodes College and now being placed here in Seguin to work at TLU. I’ll be forever grateful to James Hill for pulling a football player out of the stands of a softball game to start my sports information and social content journey as a college freshman and for his continued mentorship as well as his successor, Danielle Donze, who granted me the creative freedom on social media as a student. I can’t thank Coach Bill Miller enough for taking a chance on a kid from Memphis in the middle of the pandemic to run this department and thank you to the NCAA and the College Sports Communicators for recognizing me as one of the best up-and-comers in Division-III. I’ve had a great team of students that I’ve had the pleasure of working with and seeing grow since I arrived here in 2021. Hopefully, I’m just the first name the NCAA recognizes because with talent like Madi Johnson, Callie Brame, Missy Muras, Ben Coulombe, Kai Hendershot, Brylie Nedd, Easton Allen, and others all on our staff we have a lot of student talent that can be the future of the sports industry from TLU that should get their due on this type of platform. I’ll enjoy Vegas and the visit to the NCAA office in Indianapolis that should allow me to bring back more information to keep us at the top of the SCAC from a social content and sports information standpoint.”
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