For the past seven years, David Howell has been working hands on with the Cabrini athletic department as the sports communication director. Until recently, Howell had been the lone man working with Cavalier athletics and its social media accounts.
Last year, Howell got the approval to add another person to the Cabrini sports communication department. With that, Trent Brown was hired.
When going through the hiring process, Howell said, “It was important to bring in someone who had a different skill set than I had.”
Ever since the addition of Brown, the Cavaliers have had a new look and feel to the athletic department. Brown brought his prior experience with the MAC conference to Cabrini, only to change the look of the Cavaliers social media accounts for the better.
“When we first sat down and talked about what his responsibilities would be, we both decided he would be more involved on the creative side because that is was his passion is,” Howell said.
As for the most recent posts to the Cabrini Athletics social media accounts, there has been many photo shoots and graphics, all created by Brown.
“Visual communications is very important to athletics in general. It’s a face for how people see the department and the athletes,” Brown said.
Brown has been inspired over time by how a other institutions run their social media accounts.
“I’m always checking up on a few different schools. I look for different elements and see if I can pull it into ours,” Brown said.
As for everything that is posted on the Cabrini Athletics social media accounts, it is always about keeping up with the industry.
Howell said, “It’s all about keeping stuff fresh and interesting for everyone who views it.”
Brown keeps things fresh with the photo shoots he has been doing. These shoots showcase some of the best athletes that Cabrini has to offer, using vibrant colors, clever slogans and eye-catching fonts.
Jordan Horsley, a junior and captain of the Cabrini Cross Country team participated in one of the many photo shoots Brown has orchestrated.
“I think its great how Cabrini is advertising all of its sporting events on social media through the graphics. It was fun to represent our team taking all of the different action shots,” Horsley said.
In addition to the photo shoots, Brown has been producing high quality graphics for the social media accounts as well. Some of his work includes the Gameday posts. These include pictures of athletes with the date, time and location of the event. These pictures are eye-catching and intend to drive more foot traffic to the games.
These graphics are not just noticed by the Cabrini community but to the outside world as well. Since there are no athletic based scholarships for Divison III institutions, the student-athlete experience plays a crucial role in bringing athletes to the school.
“Anything that we can do to make that student-athlete experience better than another school helps to draw more kids to our department,” Brown said.
