The Keene State College Sports Information Department staff said farewell to a key member of their team. Former Assistant Sports Information Director (SID) Ciara Lawrence accepted the position of Sports Information Director at Smith College in Northampton, MA., and began her new duties on Monday, September 28.
According to Keene State College Sports Information Director Abe Osheyack, the loss of Lawrence is huge.
“It’s a big loss. Ciara was a very talented individual. I have taken on more responsibilities within the athletic department this year. So I passed on some remaining sports information responsibilities to her,” Osheyack said.
During her tenure at Keene State, which spanned from August 2014 to the end of September of this year, Lawrence served as the primary contact for a number of Keene State sports, including volleyball, field hockey, women’s basketball, men’s and women’s lacrosse and cross country.
Lawrence, while at Keene State, produced a variety of content.
“I managed and produced for the Keene State athletics website as well as the social media outlets,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said those social media outlets included Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Some of her other responsibilities included overseeing and training student workers for game management Lawrence said. Also, she had a number of other responsibilities on game day for the sports she was the primary contact for.
“I did live stats for all the home games. I connected with student athletes and coaches for interviews,” Lawrence said.
Many of those interviews would go on the live broadcasts of events on keeneowls.com.
Volleyball Head Coach Bob Weiner, who worked with Lawrence, said she will be missed.
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“We’re going to miss her. I’m going to miss her,” Weiner said.
One thing Weiner said she liked about working with Lawrence was her demeanor.
“She was very relaxed and creative. I’d love the pregame interview with the coach format [for the broadcasts],” Wiener said.
Lawrence has a number of memories during her time at Keene State. She said the success of the coaches, players and teams is something she will remember.
“They were successful teams that played at a high level and just being able to participate in the postseason and all the sports going to the NCAA tournament [participating in postseason play],” Lawrence said.
While at Keene State, Lawrence had the opportunity to travel to the NCAA tournament contests with the teams she covered, such as field hockey and men’s and women’s lacrosse.
Lawrence said she believes the level of responsibility that she had at Keene State will help her moving forward in her new position at Smith College.
“I learned an incredible amount in the year and a half that I was at Keene. It really made me really confident in my ability to move to be the [Sports Information] director at Smith,” Lawrence said.
In addition, she said it was hard to leave.
“I found it difficult to leave. I was given the opportunity and freedom to do the job that I loved. My boss Abe [Osheyack] was someone who I could always reach out to for anything I needed,” Lawrence said.
According to Osheyack the search for Lawrence’s replacement is underway. “We are looking to find somebody to fill the position as quickly as we can,” Osheyack said.
He also said that they are looking to bring someone in as quickly as possible and efficiently.
“We still want to make sure that that person has the skill set we are looking for. Just because it is not necessarily the best hiring season doesn’t mean that we don’t want the best person who is out there,” Osheyack said.
Brian can be contacted at bclemmenson@kscequinox.com
