Staff Writer
Workspace: Joel Lamp Associate Athletics Director/Media Relations for Jacksonville University
“If we do our job right, all we are doing is putting out little fires,” said Joel Lamp, Jacksonville University associate athletics director for media relations.
JU is the host school for the sub-regional rounds of the NCAA tournament in Jacksonville and Lamp is the media relations coordinator during the tournament’s stay in the City.
Lamp is easy to spot on game days because he can usually be seen wearing running shoes with his suit because they help him get from fire to fire quickly.
“I wore dress shoes for the first day of the tournament in 2006 and my feet were killing me by the end of the first session,” said Lamp. “I get made fun of for it, but I vowed to find some comfortable shoes and sometimes the sneakers are it.”
It’s seldom that Lamp is in one spot for an extended period of time, not because he is constantly “putting out fires,” but because he is making sure a lot of people have what they need to do their jobs.
He is in his third year at JU and his first as the associate athletics director for media relations. He
is responsible for the publicity of all 18 varsity sports at JU, the
JU Sports Network, the official Web site of JU Athletics (JUDolphins.com), editor of all sports publications and the JU Athletics Hall of Fame. He serves as the primary contact for JU’s men’s basketball program, as well as the men’s and women’s golf and tennis programs. He also fills in as color analyst on several Dolphin broadcasts and hosts the “JU Insider” weekly coach’s show.
During his first day on the job in 2006, he attended the NCAA host seminar as Jacksonville welcomed the tournament to the city.
“It was intense,” said Lamp. “It was a soup-to-nuts, two-day boot camp on how to host the NCAA tourney. It was good because we got to meet the NCAA staff face-to-face and develop relationships.”
Intense could also describe his experience during the current tournament week. Granted, there are hundreds of people who contribute to a successful tournament, and most of the staff members who worked during the last NCAA tournament in Jacksonville are returning.
“But things are never easy for the Dolphins,” said Lamp.
Shortly after the JU staff found out Sunday which teams they would be hosting during the sub-regionals, they also were informed that the JU men’s basketball team had been invited to the National Invitational Tournament and the game would be played on the campus of Arizona State University Tuesday night.
This announcement led to a search for transportation for the team, which was confirmed about 3 a.m. Monday morning and the team was on a charter airplane at 11:30 a.m. to play an 11 a.m. game on Tuesday.
That meant Lamp had to prepare as much as possible for the NCAA tournament by Tuesday morning before he and JU Director of Athletics Alan Verlander flew out to meet up with the team.
Lamp’s role for the basketball team is to meet with the media and supply information on the team’s performance and assist with interviews.
“My job is easy when we win, because everybody wants to talk,” said Lamp. “The tough part is when we lose. The players are young and they can get emotional after a loss. It’s our job to make sure we don’t put them in an awkward position. If they need some time after the game, it’s our job to get that for them and also let the media know we are also working to meet their needs.”
Before they boarded the plane, Lamp oversaw the printing of media credentials and construction of the media tables, interview areas and media work and dining areas.
The press tables were a source of one of those “fires” during the 2006 Tournament. An electrical surge caused a power outage on press row and took out equipment used by the University of Florida’s radio broadcast team and statistical and replay monitors for CBS commentators.
“We were scrambling to get stat and replay monitors back on line because the announcers were doing the show blind at that point,” said Lamp. “They didn’t have the advantage of seeing replay or the stats in front of them on the screen. All the while we are trying to figure out how it happened and how we can prevent it from happening again.”
One change press row will see this year is the elimination of wireless computers used by the host school. They will all be hardwired this year.
“We’ve had trouble with wireless in the past, so we are just going to eliminate that problem,” said Lamp.
He plans to be back in Jacksonville to meet with media representatives from each team and execute his role on a grander scale. He will go from interacting with the media and his team to interacting with the media and eight teams, which include recognizable names like Krzyzewski and Pitino.
Lamp will coordinate interviews, oversee reams of statistical info distributed to media and whatever “fires” pop up.
“This is one of my favorite sporting events to watch, though I may not get to watch most of it,” said Lamp. “And to host it, it’s pretty unbelievable.”
356-2466