Posted on Mar 21, 2005

Schenectady, NY – Eric McDowell has been named
the Director of Sports Information at Union College. McDowell began his duties
March 7. He replaces George Cuttita, who was hired as Union's first-ever
full-time SID in July of 1980.

Cuttita left Union on March 12 to
join his wife, Donna, who accepted a job with the Walt Disney World Cruise Line
last November. Cuttita, who was scheduled to leave Union on December 26, stayed
on to complete his SID career with Dick Sakala, the former Union College
Director of Athletics. Sakala, who retired in 2000, returned to assist the
college while a search for a new Director of Athletics took place.

McDowell comes to Union from the State University of
New York College at Brockport, where he served as the SID since July of 2001.
He is this year's Irving T. Marsh Award College Division honoree from ECAC-SIDA
(Eastern College Athletic Conference Sports Information Directors Association),
and will receive the award at the annual workshop on Cape Cod in June.

McDowell started his career in the profession as an
undergraduate at the University of New Haven. He later served as an assistant
and then director at the University of New Hampshire, where he also was the
Media Relations Director of the Yankee Conference (NCAA Div. I-AA football
league). McDowell moved on to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo to develop the Sports
Information department during the program's move into Division I. He was the
Media Relations Director for the NBA's Golden State Warriors during the 1997-98
season (when Latrell Sprewell choked Coach P.J. Carlesimo), and also worked for
the American Hockey League's Lowell Lock Monsters and UMass Lowell. McDowell
was the overnight media relations supervisor for the 2000 Centennial Olympic
Games in Atlanta, and served the media during another crisis, the July 27, 1996
bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, adjacent to his home base, the Main Press
Center in downtown Atlanta.

An
active member of CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) and
ECAC-SIDA, McDowell has hosted numerous panels and table topics for both
organizations. He will reprise his “Press Conference Panel” panel at
ECAC-SIDA's workshop this summer after hosting that panel at CoSIDA's workshop
in Calgary, Alberta last year. McDowell serves as a member of the Programming
Committee for CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America), and
hosted the ECAC-SIDA (Eastern College Athletic Conference Sports Information
Directors Association) Workshop in Lowell, Massachusetts in 2002. He will join
officials from Niagara Falls, NY at this summer's workshop to put in a bid to
host the 2007 ECAC-SIDA Workshop in that city. He has worked and hosted
numerous ECAC and NCAA post-season events in a variety of sports, including seven
NCAA Div. I men's basketball post-season tournament events throughout the
country.