2009 Ohio Valley Conference Football Media Guide

Current Division I Female Commissioners
Bernadette McGlade, Atlantic 10
Robin Harris, Ivy League
Patty Viverito, Missouri Valley FB Conf./Pioneer FB League
Beth DeBauche, Ohio Valley Conference
Carolyn Schlie Femovich, Patriot League
Previous Division I Female Commissioners
Linda Bruno, Atlantic 10 (1994-2008)
Connie Hurlbut, Patriot League (1993-99)
Brenda Weare, Northeast Conference (2006-09)
DeBauche is pictured with Joan Cronan, Tennessee Women’s Athletic Director and former
President of NACWAA and NACDA, at the 2008 NACWAA Awards Banquet. It was there that
DeBauche was honored with the Conference/Organization Administrator of the Year Award.

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Kyle Schwartz - Asst. Commissioner/Media Relations
       Kyle Schwartz joined the Ohio Valley
Conference as Assistant Commissioner
for Media Relations in Nov. 2006. He is in
charge of publicity efforts for the Confer-
ence and is the primary contact for football,
men’s basketball, baseball, men’s and
women’s cross country and men’s and
women’s golf among other duties. He is
also in charge of coordinating special
events for the Conference.
     Schwartz served as a timeout coordi-
nator for the 2009 NCAA Men’s Basketball
Tournament and worked with the ConSIDA
group at the Final Four in Detroit.
    Schwartz came to the OVC after spend-
ing four and a half years at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley,
Colo. There  he served as the Assistant Director of Media Relations for two
years, was promoted to Media Relations Coordinator in July 2004 and served
as Director of Media Relations in his final year.
At Northern Colorado, Schwartz helped coordinate the media efforts
of two NCAA, two conference and six independent championships,
including four during the 2005-06 school year. Schwartz was honored by
Collegiate Volleyball Update (CVU.com) with the first annual RESPecting
Volleyball (Recognition for Excellence in Supporting and Promoting Volley-
ball) Award in 2005 and was ranked the No. 3 soccer SID in the country
by Soccer Buzz magazine in 2004. The 2003 Northern Colorado volleyball
guide he wrote, designed and edited won third place honors nationally in
the CoSIDA publications contest.
Schwartz also spent two years as a graduate assistant in the
Southeast Missouri State sports information department (2000-02). It was
at SEMO that Schwartz received his master’s degree in athletic adminis-
tration, graduating with honors. Schwartz received his bachelor’s degree
in business administration from the University of Kentucky in May 2000,
graduating cum laude. As an undergraduate, he interned with the Host
Communications publishing group and also worked with the Kentucky
Thoroughblades minor league hockey team.
Schwartz, a native of Flemingsburg, Ky., is a member of the College
Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and has served on
CoSIDA’s Academic All-American committee as a district coordinator since
June 2003. Schwartz and his wife, Angella, were married in June 2004.
Brian Pulley - Asst. Commissioner/External Affairs
     Brian Pulley was named Assistant Com-
missioner for External Affairs on August
7, 2007 and enters his third year with the
Conference in 2009-10.
     Pulley brought over five years of sales
experience to the position, including com-
pleting an internship with the Conference
in 2005-06. He has cultivated relation-
ships for an array of business types and
brings a comprehensive knowledge of
game day operations as it applies to cor-
porate activation.
     Pulley came to the OVC after being an
account executive with ISP Sports in Atlanta, Ga., where he was
responsible for soliciting and cultivating corporate partners for Georgia
Tech Athletics. He also helped develop and implement promotions for
Georgia Tech football, baseball and men’s basketball as well as being
responsible for managing advertising inventory for Georgia Tech.
Pulley spent two years as a regional director with the American Heart
Association in Nashville. There he managed all aspects of fund-raising for
a nine-county territory and generated $200,000 a year in revenue. He was
also a retail account executive with The Tennessean newspaper. There
Pulley worked with clients on all facets of advertising campaigns and
helped maintain national and local accounts.
Pulley, a native of Springfield, Tenn., received his bachelor’s degree
in public relations from Middle Tennessee State University in December
1998. He completed his master’s of science degree in sports administration
from Belmont University in May 2006. It was during graduate school that
he served as an intern with the Ohio Valley Conference, helping establish
a group sales base, formulating a marketing plan and assisting with the
OVC Basketball Championship among other duties.
     Brad Walker was named Associate
Commissioner for Operations/Chief Op-
erating Officer at the Ohio Valley Confer-
ence on Oct. 19, 2007 and began his
duties at the OVC in Nov. 2007.
       Entering his third year at the OVC in
2009-10, Walker served as the League’s
Interim Commissioner from May until mid-
September 2009. He is also a member of
the Division I Championships/Sports Man-
agement Cabinet.
     Walker’s responsibilities at the OVC
include the day-to-day operations of the
Conference office, including financial op-
erations, as well as developing sched-
ules and providing oversight for select
sports, serving as a liaison with select officiating coordinators and
coaching groups, overseeing bidding for and directing of NCAA champi-
onship events, assisting with the Conference television and web stream-
ing properties and serving as the director of the men’s and women’s
basketball tournament among other things.
     Walker joined the OVC after seven-plus years at the West Coast
Conference (WCC), which is headquartered just south of San Francisco.
He joined the WCC in Oct. 2001 as Director of Communications and was
later promoted to Assistant Commissioner and Associate Commissioner.
He was responsible for coordinating the marketing efforts for the WCC’s
13 sports, as well as handling all aspects of television, including contract
negotiations. That included taking the lead role in negotiating the WCC’s
largest television contract in league history, a five-year agreement with
ESPN. He also worked closely with the league’s corporate partner program,
producing conference schedules for the six round-robin sports, including
basketball, as well as handling championship management duties.
Walker previous worked at the Mid-Continent Conference as Assis-
tant Director of Media Relations and at Holy Cross College in Worcester,
Mass. He completed his degree in marketing at Bentley College (Waltham,
Mass.) in May 1996. He was an all-conference basketball player at Bentley,
serving as team captain his senior season.
The Milwaukee, Wis. native is a 2004 graduate of the NCAA Leader-
ship Institute for Ethnic Minority Males.
Brad Walker - Associate Commissioner/Operations
Jennifer Gibbs - Asst. Commissioner/Championships
     Jennifer Gibbs begins her fourth year
with the Ohio Valley Conference, having
joined the staff in October 2006 as assis-
tant commissioner for championships. In
addition to overseeing the administration
of the OVC’s 18 championship sports,
Gibbs also serves as the Conference
Senior Woman Administrator, as well as
the staff liaison to select coaching groups
and officiating coordinators. She also co-
ordinates the league’s Student-Athlete Ad-
visory Committee.
     Gibbs was a staff member on
Nashville’s Bid Committee that success-
fully landed the Division I NCAA Women’s Final Four for the city in 2014. She
has also served as a timeout coordinator for the Men’s and Women’s
Division I NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Gibbs joined the OVC after serving as sales coordinator for the
Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League (NHL). In that role, she
was charged with preparing corporate sponsorship proposals, tracking
weekly sales activity and identifying new business prospects.
Prior to joining the Predators, Gibbs was a championships assistant
with the Sun Belt Conference, where she was involved in all facets of
coordinating the league’s championship events.
A native of Port Edwards, Wis., Gibbs received her post-secondary
and graduate education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where
she was awarded an undergraduate degree in sport management and a
master’s degree in sport administration. While attending the master’s
program at Wisconsin-La Crosse, Gibbs served as a graduate assistant
in the athletics department, assisting with event management. She also
spent seven years as the aquatics coordinator for the city of La Crosse,
managing the day-to-day operations for five aquatic facilities.
Jennifer and her husband Matt were married in August 2008.

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Rob Haucke - Director of OVC Sport Properties
      Rob Haucke joined the Ohio Valley
Conference staff in April 2008 as the
Director of OVC Sport Properties. Haucke
brings over 15 years in sales and market-
ing experience to the position.
      He joined the Conference staff as part
of the OVC’s five-year agreement with
IMG College which was signed in Febru-
ary 2008. With the deal, IMG represents
the OVC through category exclusive cor-
porate partnership sales, as well as radio
broadcast production and distribution for
the men’s basketball championship and other championship events.
Prior to joining the OVC staff, Haucke was the Director of Midwest
Sales for Division One Sports, which is based out of Dallas, Texas. There
he introduced and grew the sports-based advertising business in a five-
state region.
Haucke received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Wright
State University in 1992. At Wright State he was a four-year member of the
Raider basketball program and earned the department’s Radar Student-
Athlete Award for excellence in sports, academics and community life.
Heather Brown - Director of Media Relations
      Heather Brown is in her sixth year
with the Ohio Valley Conference in 2008-
09. After the completion of a 10-month
internship with the OVC, she served in the
position of Assistant Director for Media
Relations until her promotion of Director of
Media Relations in Dec. 2006.
     Brown, the longest tenured member of
the OVC staff, is the primary contact for
soccer, volleyball, women’s basketball,
softball, men’s and women’s track and
field, men’s and women’s rifle and men’s
and women’s tennis.
Brown has done extensive work with NCAA Championships, first
serving as the assistant media relations coordinator for the first and second
rounds of the 2005 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament in
Nashville. She has also worked the first and second round of the NCAA
Women’s Tournament in each 2004, 2006 and 2007 and the Men’s
Basketball Tournament in 2008.
Brown was instrumental in getting the OVC started in the social
network/new media phenomenon, starting both Facebook and Twitter
accounts for the league.
Prior to working with the Conference, the West Liberty, Ohio, native
served a three-month internship in the sports information office at The Ohio
State University after a one-year stint as a student assistant in the Bowling
Green State University sports information office.
A 2003 graduate of BGSU, Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in
sports management with an emphasis in sports information. She is a
member of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Jim Jackson - Coordinator of Football Officiating
     
 Jim Jackson is in his third year as
Coordinator of Football Officiating for the
OVC. Jackson is in charge of recruiting,
training and developing the officials, as
well the game selection and assignment
and evaluation of those officials and over-
sight of an officials’ observation program.
       Jackson came to the OVC after spend-
ing six years as a referee with the Sun Belt
Conference. At the Sun Belt he was also
the President of the SBC Football Officials
Association (2001-03), Position Chief
(2001-02) and winner of the Silver Whistle
Award for being the league’s highest rated official (2002). He also worked
a pair of bowl games, the Silicon Valley Bowl and the Alamo Bowl, during
his tenure with the conference.
From 1992 through 2000, Jackson was a referee at the Southern
Conference. Jackson has also served as the head linesman for the Old
Dominion Athletic Conference (1986-89) and worked for the Southeast
Tennessee Football Officials Association (SETFOA) for 18 years (1975-92).
Jackson received his Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engi-
neering from the University of Tennessee in 1972. In the professional world,
Jackson has worked for a variety of companies since graduation including
the Columbus McKinnon Corporation as a business analyst, a position he
has held since Sept. 1995.
Jackson lives in Chattanooga with his wife, Charlene, and has two
grown sons: Russ and Matt.

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FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP SUBDIVISION (FCS) CONFERENCE ALIGNMENT
BIG SKY (9)
Eastern Washington
Idaho State
Montana
Montana State
Northern Arizona
Northern Colorado
Portland State
Sacramento State
Weber State
BIG SOUTH (7)
Charleston Southern
Coastal Carolina
Gardner-Webb
Liberty
Presbyterian College
Stony Brook
VMI
COLONIAL (12)
North
Hofstra
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Northeastern
Rhode Island
South
Delaware
James Madison
Richmond
Towson
Villanova
William & Mary
GREAT WEST (5)
Cal Poly
North Dakota
South Dakota
Southern Utah
UC Davis
IVY (8)
Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Harvard
Pennsylvania
Princeton
Yale
MID-EASTERN (10)
Bethune-Cookman
Delaware State
Florida A&M
Hampton
Howard
Morgan State
Norfolk State
North Carolina A&T
South Carolina State
Winston-Salem State
MISSOURI VALLEY (9)
Illinois State
Indiana State
Missouri State
North Dakota State
UNI
South Dakota State
Southern Illinois
Western Illinois
Youngstown State
NORTHEAST (8)
Albany
Bryant
Central Connecticut State
Duquesne
Monmouth
Robert Morris
Sacred Heart
St. Francis (Pa.)
Wagner
OHIO VALLEY (9)
Austin Peay
Eastern Illinois
Eastern Kentucky
Jacksonville State
Murray State
Southeast Missouri
Tennessee State
Tennessee Tech
UT Martin
PATRIOT (7)
Bucknell
Colgate
Fordham
Georgetown
Holy Cross
Lafayette
Leigh
PIONEER (9)
Butler
Campbell
Davidson
Dayton
Drake
Jacksonville
Marist
Morehead State
San Diego
Valparaiso
SOUTHERN (9)
Appalachian State
Chattanooga
Citadel
Elon
Furman
Georgia Southern
Samford
Western Carolina
Wofford
SOUTHLAND (8)
Central Arkansas
McNeese State
Nicholls State
Northwestern State
Sam Houston State
Southeastern Louisiana
Stephen F. Austin
Texas State
SOUTHWESTERN (10)
East
Alabama A&M
Alabama State
Alcorn State
Jackson State
Mississippi Valley State
West
Arkansas-Pine Bluff
Grambling State
Prairie View A&M
Southern
Texas Southern
INDEPENDENTS (3)
Iona
North Carolina Central
Savannah State

2009 Ohio Valley Conference Football Media Guide
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2009 Ohio Valley Conference Football Media Guide
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2009 OVC SEASON NOTES/PREVIEW
Let’s Get It Started: The 62nd season of Ohio Valley Conference football will get
underway on Thursday, Sept. 3 when five OVC schools take to the field. Three
other OVC schools will play its first game of the season two days later while
Tennessee Tech has a bye the opening weekend and will not play its first con-
test until Thursday, Sept. 10. The OVC is made up of nine football-playing schools
in 2009. Since its beginning, 14 of the 18 total schools that have played football
in the OVC have claimed at least one championship.
Jacksonville State Ineligible for OVC Championship/Postseason Play: In May
the NCAA announced the Jacksonville State University received a posteason
ban due to an occasion three historic penalty of the APR (Academic Progress
Rate). In accordance with OVC by-laws, since Jax State is not eligible for the
NCAA postseason, they are also not eligible for the OVC Championship. Jack-
sonville State will still play a full Conference schedule in 2009 with wins and
losses counting for both teams. They will just not be eligible for the title and will
be listed at the bottom of the standings with an asterisk.
Preseason Forecasts: In what was one of the most balanced votes in the his-
tory of preseason OVC balloting (five different teams got at least one first-place
votes), defending champion Eastern Kentucky was tabbed the preseason favor-
ite by the league head coaches and sports information directors. EKU received
10 of the 18 first-place votes followed by UT Martin (4 first-place votes), Eastern
Illinois (2), Tennessee State (1) and Murray State (1). It marks the 17th time that
the Colonels have been picked to win the OVC Championship in the preseason
poll. But is being picked first in the preseason poll necessarily a good thing? In
the past 30 years of preseason polls (all that were available), the preseason
predicted champion has only gone on to win the OVC Championship 12 times
(40.0%). In each of the last six years, the predicted champion has failed to claim
the regular season title. The last time the preseason predicted champion went
on to win the title was in 2002 when Eastern Illinois accomplished the feat (EIU
also did that same thing in 2001).
Year
Predicted Champion
Actual Champion
2002
Eastern Illinois
Eastern Illinois
2003
Southeast Missouri
Jacksonville State
2004
Eastern Kentucky
Jacksonville State
2005
Jacksonville State
Eastern Illinois
2006
Eastern Kentucky
Eastern Illinois/UT Martin
2007
Jacksonville State
Eastern Kentucky
2008
Eastern Kentucky
?
OVC Seeks Multiple Teams in the Playoffs: The OVC will be looking to get
multiple teams into the FCS Playoffs for the third time in four years this season.
Last year marked the first time since 2005 that just one OVC team (league
champion Eastern Kentucky) made the 16-team playoff field. Two other teams
(Jacksonville State and Tennessee State) finished with eight Division I victories
but did not receive an at-large bid. It marked the first time since the playoffs
expanded to 16 teams in 1986 that an OVC team with eight Division I teams did
not receive an at-large bid. EKU lost to eventual national champion Richmond in
the first round last season.
NFL Connections:  As of the start of training camps, 16 former Ohio Valley Con-
ference football players are on NFL rosters for the 2009 season. Those players
include former Eastern Illinois standout Tony Romo, who is the starting quarter-
back of the Dallas Cowboys and two-time Pro Bowl pick, defensive back Cortland
Finnegan (Samford) who was a Pro Bowl selection with the Tennessee Titans
last year and Tennessee State’s Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, who was a
starter with the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII in February. There are four
players on NFL rosters who played in the OVC last season, including Cornelius
Lewis (Tennessee State) of the Indianapolis Colts, Cecil Newton (Tennessee
State) of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Pierre Walters (Eastern Illinois) and
Javarris Williams (Tennessee State) both of the Kansas City Chiefs. Six of the
nine current OVC football schools have at least one player playing in the NFL
with Tennessee State leading the way with five players. Several NFL coaches
also have connections to OVC schools, including two current ones who played
at Eastern Illinois - Brad Childress (Minnesota) and Sean Payton (New Or-
leans). Another EIU alumni - Mike Shanahan - is out of coaching this year but
should be back with a team in 2010. The Steelers Mike Tomlin was a former
assistant coach at UT Martin and is now in his third season with Pittsburgh; he
led the Steelers to the Super Bowl title last season. UT Martin graduate and
PRESEASON ALL-OVC HONORS
Predicted Order of Finish
 1. Eastern Kentucky (10)
105
 2. UT Martin (4)
92
 3. Eastern Illinois (2)
89
 4. Tennessee  State  (1)
74
 5. Murray State (1)
61
 6. Tennessee  Tech
35
 7. Austin Peay
33
Southeast Missouri
33
Note: Jacksonville State is not eligible for the OVC Cham-
pionship (NCAA APR penalties) and therefore is not ranked
in the preseason poll.
In a balanced vote that saw five of the eight eligible
teams receive at least one first-place vote, two-time de-
fending champion Eastern Kentucky has been picked as
the 2009 preseason favorite in a vote of league head
coaches and sports information directors. The Colonels
received 10 first-place votes to take home the preseason
honor for the third time in the last five years. UT Martin,
2006 co-champions, were picked to finish second and
received four first-place votes. Eastern Illinois was third
with two first-place votes followed by Tennessee State
and Murray State who each received one first-place vote.
The preseason poll was rounded out by Tennessee Tech
being picked sixth and Austin Peay and Southeast Mis-
souri tying for seventh place.