Some of you may know I spent the first half of my professional career as a public relations professional in the world of college athletics. Back then we called the job being a sports information director, or SID. The industry evolved to labeling the role something like athletic media relations or athletic communications or similar, but our job was to publicize the teams, coaches and student-athletes.

The first sport I was ever placed in charge of as a student assistant at Morehead State University was the Eagle volleyball team. I hadn’t ever seen volleyball in person before going to college, but was trained to keep statistics at matches by hand … now they do it on computers. I designed the team’s media guide, wrote press releases, pitched ideas to newspaper reporters and TV journalists. 

While volleyball wasn’t the only the sport I worked, it was always my favorite. It was fast, the young women playing were always super athletic, jumping high and crushing the ball into the opponent’s court. I never worked at a school that sponsored men’s volleyball, but I’m kind of glad for that. It helped me appreciate how strong and dominant women can be on the playing courts and fields. 

Last fall I had the opportunity to speak to a public relations class at the University of Louisville. Dr. Karen Freberg is a professor there. She and I have shared the stage at conferences and traveled along side one another a few times. She’s kind of a social media pioneer in the academic circles, building out curricula for the new world of PR thanks to social media, influencers and the like. She has me speak to her class each year, which I always enjoy doing.

Low and behold one of Dr. Freberg’s students last fall was Aiko Jones. She is a star blocker for the Cardinals and was instrumental in the team’s run to the Final Four and National Runners-Up finish. UofL was 31-3 overall with an amazing 17-1 record in the ACC. 

For those of you who don’t know sports, Aiko was one of the dominant players on one of the most dominant teams in the entire country at the college level last year. 

She’s back for her senior year in 2023 and will no doubt make a run at racking up another string of honors. She was Final Four All-Tournament Team and All-Louisville Regional Team in the NCAA Tournament. First Team All-ACC, First Team All-Region.

In layman’s terms, she’s one of the best college volleyball players in the country. 

Which means, she’s well versed in Name Image Likeness benefits and parlaying her athletic prowess into brand deals and collaborations. So, I asked my pal Aiko to come on the show to share some of those experiences with all of us. We’ll learn about NIL from the student-athlete perspective today on Winfluence.  

As always, this episode of Winfluence is presented by CIPIO.ai. Let us scale your user-generated content needs and deliver authentic, high-performing UGC to fuel your paid, owned and earned content strategies. Learn more at CIPIO.ai.

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