New Sports Information Director Delvin Wilson on Curating a Community
A grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning. A touchdown with ten seconds left on the clock in overtime. A half-court shot that determines who wins the championship and who returns home empty-handed.
It’s all too easy to think of sports in only this way: high drama with even higher stakes, where aggression, technical skill and the quality of a team’s collective mindset decides the outcome of a season. What is often lost in the fog of this “showbusiness” is the massive amount of effort by the athletics department to provide an infrastructure that can support our athletic teams.
This is where a man like Delvin J. Wilson comes in. Wilson, previously the Director of New Media for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, is the new Sports Information Director here at the University of Dallas.
When asked about the kind of work required of this position, Wilson said, “The work in Sports Information requires you to be a game day atmosphere curator, an extended arm of IT, a website designer, a social media and analytics guru, a photographer, avideographer, a statistician, and a level-headed problem solver.”
Born in Midland-Odessa and raised in Terrell, Texas, Wilson grew up in a family with four brothers and two sisters. As his father was a pastor, his family moved a few times and eventually settled in Mesquite, where Wilson finished high school. Needless to say, the combination of having a large family and adapting to many different environments at a formative age prepped Wilson for the collaborative and fast-paced world of sports analytics.
When asked about his decision to come to UD, Wilson said, “The sincere and highly esteemed Athletic Director here, Jarred Samples, reached out to me, spoke highly of the university, and introduced me to the coaching and training staff. I was sold!”
For Wilson, the greatest draw to UD was the culture established by the staff and student athletes. Remarking on this culture, he said, “I would say that I am most encouraged by the people here. People mean everything to me, from the staff to the student athletes and being able to tell their stories and build an effective and communicative culture is what drives me.”
The reason we like sports is no secret: it’s an incredible display of physical and mental struggle. It is a window into human capacity and an example of the way in which collaborative effort can lead to great success.
However, we can only enjoy it if there is an infrastructure that supports athletics from every level. Information is an essential part of that process, allowing fans to remain informed about their favorite players and make predictions about the season.
Delvin J. Wilson is a fantastic addition to the community of the University of Dallas. The work he does is an essential part of the work we do as a school with a significant number of student athletes.