EAST-COMM Awards Announcement

SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Slippery Rock University director of athletic communication Jon Holtz was announced Tuesday as a recipient of the 2022 Irving T. Marsh Award presented by the Eastern Athletic Communications Association (EAST-COMM).
 
Holtz will be presented with the honor at an awards dinner during the 2022 EAST-COMM Workshop Thursday evening, June 16 at the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland.
 
The Irving T. Marsh Award is considered one of the highest honors EAST-COMM bestows. It is given annually to one or two individuals who, in the opinion of the membership and executive board, has exhibited excellence in the field of athletic communications. First presented in 1966, the awards are named after Irving T. Marsh, the East Coast Athletic Conference Service Bureau founder and director until his retirement in 1973.
 
The Marsh Award will be the third and highest honor presented to Holtz by EAST-COMM. He was first recognized in 2007 with the Bill Esposito Memorial Award, which is presented annually to one graduating college senior. He becomes the first Esposito Award winner in the organization's history to later be recognized with the Marsh Award. Holtz was also presented with the President's Award after serving as the organization's president during the 2018-19 academic year, culminating with a successful 2019 workshop in Framingham, Massachusetts.
 
"I am very humbled to be recognized by EAST-COMM with the Marsh Award," said Holtz. "I credit so much of my career to attending what was then the ECAC-SIDA workshop when I was still in college. The people I met that week and the relationships I began to form solidified my interest in making a career out of athletic communications. I have for many years looked up to the folks that have won this award as the pillars of our profession. To have my name listed among some of the all-time greats, a list that includes both of my mentors in Mansfield's Steve McCloskey and Army's Bob Beretta [now the athletic director at Le Moyne], is truly a special recognition that I will treasure forever."
 
Holtz, now in his 13th year at Slippery Rock, is the longest tenured current athletic administrator at SRU. He took over as director of athletic communication in 2014 and transformed the office from the former title of Sports Information to its current title, Athletic Communication.
 
Since transitioning the office, Holtz and his staff have earned more than 100 national and regional awards for their work in publications, graphic design, writing, the website and as overall communications professionals, including 60 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) publication and digital design awards and 28 "Best in the Nation" distinctions.
 
Holtz and his staff are responsible for the design and layout of the official Athletics website, www.RockAthletics.com, as well as all content on the site. The Athletic Communication Office also runs all of the official social media accounts for Slippery Rock Athletics, including the department's video initiatives and YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. Since adding social media to the athletic communication department in 2010, Slippery Rock has built one of the highest social media followings among all Division II schools with the accounts receiving more than 20 million views annually.
 
The Rock were also the first Division II school in the nation to launch their own streaming device applications for viewing live sporting events. Holtz and his staff launched the "Rock Athletics Digital Network" in 2017. The network has free apps available for download on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Android TV devices and broadcasts more than 75 live SRU events every year.
 
In addition to his responsibilities at SRU, Holtz spent five years in the presidential rotation on the executive board of EAST-COMM. He also served four years on the national board of the Division II Sports Information Directors Association (D2SIDA) and is currently a member of the CoSIDA Division II Cabinet.
 
A native of Shortsville, New York, Holtz previously served one year as sports information director at Lycoming College. Prior to that, he served one year as an athletic communications assistant at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, working with Army's Division I Athletics program.
 
Holtz got his start in athletic communications at his Alma Mater, Mansfield University, where he served as captain of the track and field team and worked under CoSIDA Hall of Famer Steve McCloskey as a student intern. Mansfield recognized Holtz with the "Outstanding Young Alumni Award" in 2019.
 
"This is an award that will have my name on it, but it should really have so many other names on it as well," said Holtz. "Our terrific assistant director, Tyler McIntosh, is the gear that turns the wheel for our office. Without his efforts, our office would be nowhere near as successful as we have been. The same can be said about our current and former graduate assistants and the hundreds of undergraduate student-workers that have worked in our office. I am so grateful for all of their contributions and want to thank them for helping lift me to an honor I proudly share with them."
 
Holtz becomes the eighth athletic communication professional from any of the 18 current Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference institutions to be recognized as a Marsh Award winner.
 
PSAC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATORS TO WIN THE MARSH AWARD
1986 – Pete Nevins (East Stroudsburg)
1998 – Jim Hollister (Bloomsburg)
2003 – Steve McCloskey (Mansfield)
2004 – Greg Wright (Millersville)
2005 – John Leisering (Mercyhurst)
2014 – Tom McGuire (Bloomsburg)
2016 – Bob Shreve (Edinboro)
2022 – Jon Holtz (Slippery Rock)
 


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