In the ever changing world of college athletics, you can only imagine the degrees of change Stew Salowitz has seen at Illinois Wesleyan University.
After serving as publicist and statistician for the Division III school’s athletic programs for 31 years, Salowitz is calling a career.
It’s a career that saw his role as sports information director evolve from being a media liaison to a content developer and publisher for two dozen sports programs with the advent of electronic media.
Salowitz said his earlier career as a radio broadcaster served him well for the role.
“I had a pretty good handle on what broadcasters needed,” Salowitz, though he added much has changed over the years.
He noted when he became the university's SID in 1988, he distributed stats to the media on carbon paper.
Three decades later, Salowitz reflected on multiple generations of new technology that have given the public instant access to a wealth of information.
“It is amazing the things that have gone on and the advances,” Salowitz said. “We’ll take a picture and it will be on our website worldwide in just moments and Facebook Live, streaming video (etc.).”
Salowitz said those technology advances have enabled schools like Illinois Wesleyan to produce their own media content for fans, at a time when newspaper, radio and television have scaled back coverage of their athletic events.
He said he and his colleagues have faced a major learning curve to become their own media.
“We have said over the last five years and maybe as many as the last 10 years that our website has become the newspaper or has become the radio, because of the (video) streaming,” Salowitz said.
Salowitz will work one last weekend of games, this Friday and Saturday, as the Titans' softball teamplays for a bid into the Division III College World Series.
Salowitz was inducted into Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2012.
WGLT depends on financial support from users to bring you stories and interviews like this one. As someone who values experienced, knowledgeable, and award-winning journalists covering meaningful stories in Central Illinois, please consider making a contribution.
