KJCCC
COLBY, Kan. – Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Commissioner Mike Saddler has announced the hiring of Matt Kinney as Assistant Commissioner and Sports Information Director for the KJCCC.
Kinney, the current Assistant Athletic Director for External Relations at KJCCC member school Cloud County Community College, will begin his duties with the conference on Monday, July 15th.
"I'm excited to welcome Matt to the Jayhawk Conference" remarked KJCCC Commissioner Mike Saddler. "His track record as a sports information director and experience in the conference makes him a great fit to step into this new role." "He will help elevate our brand and further enhance our efforts to tell our story while elevating our championships for both student-athletes and fans."
As Assistant Commissioner and Sports Information Director for the KJCCC, Kinney will focus on communication efforts for the 21-member conference in enhancing the public relations efforts and telling the story of one of the premier junior college conferences in the country. In addition to overseeing all maintenance of the KJCCC website, Kinney will help facilitate all KJCCC Player of the Week committees and create all communications materials for the 17 sports that are offered by the conference. Other duties that Kinney will oversee include the facilitation of post-season awards voting, coordinating the delivery of all awards handed out by the conference, and supervising the submission of game film exchange, rosters, and other conference-mandated information.
In total, Kinney has spent the past 12 years in the sports information industry including the past 10 years in a full-time role at various levels of collegiate athletics. Included in the past 10 years is six years within the KJCCC with the 2016-17 season spent at Dodge City Community College as Sports Information Director in addition to his current role at Cloud County Community College in 2019. During his tenure with CCCC, Kinney has provided coverage of one NJCAA National Championship team, the school's first NJCAA Wrestling individual national champion, 30 individual track and field/cross country national championship performances, five NJCAA National Runner-Up teams, 12 NJCAA Top-five team finishes, and 11 NJCAA Region VI Team Championships. Additionally, Kinney has nominated and promoted three student-athletes who were named CoSIDA/College Sports Communicators Academic All-Americans, with wrestler Zach Ferris being named the 2022 CoSIDA/CSC College Division Men's Academic All-American of the Year. All three student-athletes were one of just 10 men's student-athletes from across all two-year colleges to earn Academic All-American status in their respective years. Kinney was also one of 11 members on the inaugural CoSIDA/College Sports Communicators Two-Year Colleges Divisional Cabinet as part of the new governance structure implemented in 2020-21 and also serves on numerous KJCCC Player of the Week voting committees.
Prior to joining the Cloud County athletic department, Kinney spent two years as Sports Information Director at LeTourneau University, an NCAA Division III institution in Longview, Texas where he was responsible for media coverage of all 17 sports for the YellowJackets athletic department. Kinney was responsible for all athletic social media accounts and coordinating all game-day operations and media activities for home events, as well as producing media guides and game programs for the YellowJackets. During his time at LeTourneau, Kinney promoted two Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-American athletes, 17 All-Region Athletes, the first two All-American student-athletes in the history of the track and field program, and provided exclusive coverage of the YellowJacket men's basketball team's first-ever NCAA Tournament Appearance and victory.
Before taking over as Sports Information Director at LeTourneau University, Kinney spent one year at fellow KJCCC School Dodge City Community College where he was the primary media contact for all 16 sports in addition to administering the athletic website and school social media accounts. In his one year with the Conquistadors, Kinney was able to grow the Dodge City Athletics Facebook page by 71 percent and the Twitter page by 42 percent while providing live video coverage of all home athletic contests and select road games.
Before entering the sports information industry full-time, Kinney spent two years as a graduate assistant at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois where he helped provide coverage for all 24 athletic teams which included providing exclusive coverage of the women's soccer team's first-ever Final-Four appearance in 2014. While at IWU, Kinney received his Master's Degree in Sport Management from Illinois State University.
Kinney started his career in sports information at Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska where he spent two years as a student assistant while obtaining his Bachelor's Degree in Sport Management and Online Media. In addition to his two years as a student assistant for WSC, Kinney also completed a 15-week, 600-hour internship in the Athletic Communications department at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where he served as the primary media contact for the women's track and field and men's tennis teams.
About the KJCCC:
The Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference (KJCCC) is made up of 21 two-year colleges in the state of Kansas that offer collegiate athletics. It includes 19 community colleges, one technical college, and one private two-year college and operates as a member of the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).