Gene McGivern, sports information director at St. Thomas for 22 years, will receive an award from the Minnesota chapter of the National Football Foundation in recognition of his work.
McGivern will receive the Sid Hartman Media Award, named after the longtime sports columnist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on April 17 at the chapter’s 9th Annual Minnesota Football Honors event presented by the Minnesota Vikings.
McGivern is the longest-tenured sports information director in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. He joined St. Thomas in 1995 after serving six years as sports information director and cross country coach at Augsburg. He previously was sports editor at daily newspapers in Ames, Iowa, and Alliance, Nebraska.
“Gene does an excellent job as our sports information director and is tireless in promoting our teams and athletes,” said Steve Fritz, director of athletics at St. Thomas. “We have a superb website (tommiesports.com), and our coaches and athletes are regularly featured by the local media because of Gene’s efforts.”
The foundation, in citing McGivern, pointed out that he covers 22 varsity teams and has written about seven national team champions, 15 national coaches of the year and 79 Academic All-America student-athletes honored by the College Sports Information Directors Association.
The association has recognized McGivern for his feature writing with two Best in National and six Best in District writing awards. He writes “Gene’s Blog” on tommiesports.com, contributes to St. Thomas magazine and has written two biographies (on former Iowa State basketball coach Johnny Orr and then-Vikings coach Dennis Green).
McGivern is a graduate of Iowa State University, where he was an All-Big Eight runner and captain of the track and field and cross country teams.
