Barb Kowal 5th Woman Named to CoSIDA Board
Texas Assistant Athletic Director Began 3-Year Term in August

Barb Kowal, Assistant Athletics Director and women's athletics media relations director at the University of Texas, was elected to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Board of Directors in August.

Kowal began her three-year term as an at-large represenative last August for CoSIDA, the national organization for collegiate athletic media relations professionals.

In her 17th year as a collegiate athletic media relations professional, Kowal enters her fourth year as Assistant Athletics Director/Women's Athletics Media Relations Director at Texas. Kowal joined the UT athletics staff in April of 1997 as media relations director for women's athletics, and was promoted to Assistant AD for media relations in July of 1998.

Kowal came to Texas after a 12-year tenure at the University of Connecticut where she served as senior associate director of athletic communications and was primarily responsible for media relations efforts for women's basketball, softball, men's and women's soccer. At Texas, Kowal oversees public relations, publications and photography efforts for Longhorn women's athletics. One of her primary duties at Texas is handling publicity for the Longhorn women's basketball program. She also serves as color analyst for UT women's basketball away game radio and internet broadcasts. In April of 2000, she was singled out by the Women's Basketball Journal as one of the nation's top five women's college basketball SID's.

Since 1997, Kowal has served as a media relations assistant at the annual NCAA Women's Basketball Division I Final Four. Kowal has coordinated basketball All-America campaigns for three Kodak All-Americans who went on to win the prestigious Margaret Wade Trophy as National Player of the Year: Texas' Edwina Brown (1999-2000) and UConn's Rebecca Lobo (1994-95) and Jennifer Rizzotti (1995-96).

She has been honored with 35 national and district awards for her publications from CoSIDA, including four "Best in the Nation" honors for basketball and soccer. Her 1995-96 UConn women's basketball guide and her 1998-99 Texas women's basketball media guide both received "Best in the Nation" recognition, while the 1999-2000 Longhorn guide was voted "Second Best in the Nation".

At Connecticut, Kowal developed and coordinated the publicity efforts for the Huskies' women's basketball team, which has the largest number of daily media following any women's athletics program in the nation. Following UConn's undefeated NCAA National Championship season in 1994-95, Kowal was the co-executive producer of the UConn basketball season video "35-0", which chronicled the Huskies' run to the NCAA title. That video earned a 1995 New England Sports Emmy nomination, and also generated nearly $90,000 in sales which went to establishing scholarship funds.

In addition to her work as media coordinator for numerous NCAA Tournament basketball, soccer, softball and field hockey competitions, Kowal also worked at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, IN where she was a media coordinator for men's and women's field hockey and team handball.

A native of Massachusetts, Kowal received her bachelor's degree in English from Smith College in 1980 where she was a two-sport athlete in basketball and softball, and captained the softball team as a senior. She then went on for her master's degree in sport management at the University of Massachusetts (1982).

Kowal becomes the fourth SID from the University of Texas to serve on the CoSIDA Board of Directors. She follows the late Wilbur Evans, CoSIDA President in 1960; Jones Ramsey, CoSIDA President in 1974; and CoSIDA Past President and current Texas Assistant AD Bill Little, who presided over the organization in 1989.