About 2 years ago sporting events at IU Southeast weren’t broadcasted at all. One man who helped put together the ability for most IUS sports games to be broadcasted live streamed online. That man is Sports Information Director Stephen Utz.

Stephen is a New Albany native, who attended New Albany High School and soon after attended the University of Richmond in Virginia. Stephen started working for IUS as an intern in November 2010 and became the Sports Information Director in February 2011. He handles the public relations and marketing for the athletic department here at IUS.

“I update the website and all the social media for the department, as well as send out press releases and update statistics,” said Utz.

His junior and senior years at Richmond Stephen worked in the athletic department doing a variety of different things. He then interned at the University of Louisville his senior year in the sports information office.

Utz didn’t think he was going to be a Sports Information Director when he first went to college however.

“I thought I was going to go to law school when I was in college, and then I started working for Richmond’s athletic department, got to know the public relations folks pretty well and knew that the job played well with my strengths and started to go down this route instead,” said Utz.

Stephen does his best to have a great relationship with all the student athletes he works with.

“It’s a good relationship. I think they understand what my role is and they’ve always been great to deal with,” said Utz.

One of those student athletes who have a good friendship with Utz is senior softball player Summer Sanders. Summer thinks that Utz does a great job.

“He does a great job with the website and keeps everything updated,” said Sanders.
Associate Athletic Director Denny Williams believes that Stephen is doing a wonderful job with broadcasting the games.

Summer also recalls a fun moment that she had while Stephen was a chaperone on the bus.

“He let us have a nerf gun war on the bus. He’s every teams biggest fan,” said Sanders.

“Finding people to be able to broadcast, do it right, sound professional it’s a tough job so Stephen’s done a wonderful job keeping up with it,” said Williams.
Utz believes that broadcasting baseball and softball games is a possibility in the future.

“It’s going to be a question of logistically can we get a good place to set up the camera and get a good shot of the game without shooting through the backstop,” said Utz.

IUS broadcasting continues to improve and give all students and others who can’t attend the IUS games the experience of supporting their team, and it’s all because of the mastermind behind the ongoing project.