Elon Losing a Great Person/SID

[appstatefan21]

I have recently found out the Elon Sports Information Director Matt Eviston has left Elon. He has been a great asset to Elon's athletic department and was an awesome SID to work with. He was great with the media, never a foul word and did well at his job.

He will forever be remembered for wearing a maroon and gold bow tie at the SoCon championship game last year after losing a bet to Citadel assistant SID Patrick Walsh. It was hilarious.

An SID does not get much praise but I thought he deserved some note worthy mention on this board.

[whoanellie]

i got to personally thank him for an awesome job. a true unsung hero.

[ontheair]

Having had family in the SID business, if you normally have two to three people in the department and then one leaves, you're next couple of months are torture. I just hope the give them job to someone with enough time for football. If Blank lags on this, he's going to be dealing with a VERY grumpy Pete Lembo. Lembo's big on the publicity side of things and if there isn't a regular contact (which for football, there HAS to be one guy dedicated to this), a lot of student athletes are going to not get big awards they have in the past.

For Matt, Matt was amazing at his job. Whenever you got in a conversation with him, it took you a while to get out of it. But it was good...you were never upset about being tied up 30 minutes in a conversation with him. I know Matt real well and I really hate to see a good ride end.

I know that the hiring of this position isn't going to be a hotly debated topic, but if Blank screws this one up, it's going to hurt the athletic department.

[appstatefan21]

I vote for them to promote Chris Rash. I think he's ready for the big time.

[elonfirefighter]

Rash is a great guy and I think would be a perfect fit for the job

[3birdfan]

I like Rash, think he is awesome and in no point would be disappointed to see him promoted.....
BUT, (I have a feeling this will not be well liked, oh well)

I love a breath of fresh air. I think this has been the problem with Elon in the past, sometimes we just keep promoting inside. Elon is becoming a top notch program and should grab the attention of a lot of great people. I would love to see someone new with a lot of energy come in with some new ideas.
But in the end all, I need them to hire the best candidate who is going to be the best the Phoenix Sports info department.

[elonfirefighter]

A side note, this has been listed on Elons job site for at least two weeks now. I bet were building a list but will we still go inside or pull from out or pull someone in for
Rash's job and bump him up

[ontheair]

Here's the main issue I have with that....we're saying that a guy that has been there for almost a decade doesn't deserve to be promoted. It's if we promote a guy thats been there less than 3 years. I can see the whole "not wanting to promote from within" argument and we can't get into that habit.

However, I can tell you from several sources that the morale within the athletic department is very low and this is a product of Dave Blank. That doesn't bode well for stability. If you feel that you can't be there and then get yours, well that's absurd. This isn't really a Chris Rash issue to me. This is a "am I worth anything if I'm here for a long time" issue.

I understand a breath of fresh air, but with Sports Information, you build relationships. If you hit the restart button, which I fear may end up being the case, it takes AT LEAST two years to rebuild all those media relationships. That translates into bad publicity and that can cost a student athlete an All-American or All-SoCon honor.

Again, you have to be REAL CAREFUL with this position. Deceptively, screwing up the hiring of this position and not being able to have a stable three-person sports information crew WILL hurt this athletic department as a whole.

Then again, Chris might not want it, you never know. If that happens, I could see there being a whole new office, which isn't good with football training camp starting in almost 3 months. Believe me, that sneaks up VERY quickly.

[fc97]

What happened to to Eviston?

[3birdfan]

jacquelynadams.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/goodbye-matt-eviston/

Watch this video it should answer at least the where question plus give Matt some love.

What a great guy.

[blackphoenix]

He's an awesome guy. I'm happy for him. HUGE loss for Elon.

[soconfan]

Any updates on this? Figure candidates would have to be on campus and interviewed and surprised no one has been named. Maybe waiting until June?

[elonsoccerfan]

I know candidates have been interviewed...no clue who or when a hiring will be amde.

[elonphoenix]

From my understanding all new hires (even replacements for existing positions) now need to be approved by a budget committee, and from what I hear most staff hiring has been delayed until September after the administration sees that all the expected students (new & returning) show up and pay their tuition bill. Wouldn't shock me for Matt's position to remain vacant into the fall, with his load shared among the rest of the department.

[soconfan]

That would be surprising since it is considered a director position. It would really put the whole department in a tough spot having to cover what an SID job fully entails, but I know with it being tough times economically you shouldn't be surprised by anything.

Do we know if the same delay would apply to the third assistant coaching spot on the men's basketball staff? Matheny just has two assistants right now, will he have to wait to hire his third or will he not have to wait as long? Would be tough to go through the summer down an assistant coach I would have to think.