Media Relations in Sport: Fourth Edition

In recent years the model of sport media communication has changed drastically, and it continues to evolve seemingly daily. The bywords of media communication are interconnectivity, interactivity, and mobility. The fourth edition of Media Relations in Sport provides readers information on the current trends and emerging areas in the field of sport communication from technology to social media to how the global outreach of sport has affected the sports media profession. While the fourth edition rightly goes into emerging areas of the field, it also retains the focus of the first three editions, specifically on the basics and principles of sports media that remain its foundations. Any student interested in a career in sports media has to know certain essentials -- how to interview, how to effectively create and distribute content, and how to deal with communications problems that will invariably arise. All of these subjects and more are addressed, as are more specialized topics such as those dealing with event management, publicity campaigns, and ethics.

Craig Esherick is an associate professor of sport management at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He is the associate director of the Center for Sport Management at Mason and he also works with the U.S. Department of State and their Sports United section on grants that use sport for diplomacy and community building. Esherick is the Mid Atlantic Sports Network's (MASN) prime color commentator for college basketball. In the summer of 2014, he started a three year term as an editor for the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics (JIIA). Esherick's life in the sports industry started as a college basketball player and then basketball coach. He was a scholarship member of the Georgetown Hoyas from 1974-78; he received a business degree in finance with a minor concentration in Theology from Georgetown University. Craig also holds a law degree from Georgetown (1982) and has been a member of the DC Bar since 1982.

Craig's coaching career started as an assistant at St. Anthony's HS in DC and continued as a graduate assistant, full time assistant, and the head coach for the Hoyas from 1999 to 2004. He also served as an assistant coach and scout for the US Olympic Men's Basketball team in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Craig's career as a professor started at NYU where he worked in their master's degree program for two years as an adjunct for several sport management classes. He is the co-author of three textbooks, along with numerous book chapters and articles for journals, books and encyclopedias. Esherick's fourth book, The Art and Science of Coaching, will be published in 2015. Craig is married to Theo Stamos and they have two college-age children, Nicko and Zachary. Theo is the Commonwealth Attorney for the DC suburb of Arlington County in the state of Virginia.

Philip H. Caskey, MA, MS, is a social studies educator at University High School in Morgantown, West Virginia, teaching civics and world history. In the summer of 2010, Caskey returned to school full time to change his career from sports information into secondary education. He graduated in December 2012, with a master’s in secondary education with West Virginia state certification in social studies. Prior to returning to school, Caskey spent 11 years as a sports information director with the West Virginia University (WVU) Athletic Department. He was promoted to Associate Sports Information Director in December 2008, after serving his previous tenure as the office’s assistant.

A native of Martinsburg, West Virginia, Caskey served as the primary media relations contact for Mountaineer women’s basketball and served as the secondary contact for WVU football. He also assisted with the overall operation of WVU’s 15 other varsity sports and supervised a student staff that consisted of three graduate assistants and two student assistants. Prior to his full-time tenure in the Sports Communications office, Caskey served two years as a graduate assistant in the office from 1999 to 2001 as the primary media relations liaison for Mountaineer baseball, wrestling, and men’s soccer. A seven-time award-winning College Sports Information Director’s of America national and district feature writer, Caskey is also an adjunct instructor in WVU’s College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences graduate sport management program and WVU’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism online curriculum classes. He has also served as media coordinator for numerous WVU- and NCAA-hosted sporting events. Caskey earned his BS in journalism, with a specialization in public relations, from WVU in 1999. He earned his first master’s degree, also from WVU, in sport management in 2001. He is married to the former Sarah Smith of Morgantown and they both reside in the University City.

The late Brad Schultz, PhD (1948-2023) was a former professor at the School of Journalism & New Media at the University of Mississippi.

His research interests focused primarily on the effect of new technologies on the practice of sports journalism. Dr. Schultz was the author of six books, two dozen scholarly papers, and scores of academic presentations. He was also the creator and former editor of the Journal of Sports Media, published by University of Nebraska Press. Dr. Schultz has produced four documentaries for public television, one of which won a national Aurora Award for Best Sports Documentary in 2010. He spent 15 years in local television news and sports before entering academia. Dr. Schultz passed away on June 19, 2023.