Before you read, see or hear information on Ohio State’s 34 sports, Gerry Emig, director of athletic communications, and his staff are preparing what they want released to the media.”We have a duty to the media to be the liaison between the media and athletic department,” said Emig, who has been directing the athletic communications staff since last March.The staff is in charge of publicizing OSU sports. This includes media guides, game programs, schedule cards, posters, game notes and releases.Emig’s department has a game management responsibility as well. “We run the show here when there are home events,” Emig said. Before any game on campus, Emig and his staff distribute media credentials, check electricity and phone lines, and make sure proper statisticians, scorekeepers and public address announcers on site.Emig’s staff consists of six full-time sports information employees and two full-time interns (sports associates).”All eight of those individuals have two to four sports under their umbrella and it is their responsibility to become very close to the coaches and student athletes on those teams,” Emig said. “We feel the more we know about a sport, the better we can promote it.” The sports information staff takes a hands-on approach when it comes to student athletes. It is their role to be on hand when interviews are going to take place and control media contact with players.With 34 sports to cover and only eight employees, the sports information staff makes use of student interns and a graduate assistant, Kim Parker. “This is the first year we’ve had the luxury of a graduate assistant and we have eight students that are in here learning to do this business. It is our job to train these students, so when they go to an event they know what to expect. The bottom line is, we need these students.”Other schools’ sports information staffs have more employees to cover fewer sports. For example, the University of Texas has eight staff members to cover 18 sports while the University of Tennessee has 10 employees to cover 22 sports.With so few employees to cover so many sports, the sports information business can be tough on family life, which is new to Emig. “In the last year my wife and I were married and had a little boy,” said Emig. “I’m learning how to leave work here at the office, whereas in the past I would work 11 to 12 hours and then bring more work home with me. Now there is an important variable in my life, family.” Emig added that the sports information business is a seven-day-a-week job, with employees putting in as much as 80 hours every week.”When a student athlete or employee gets in tough situations things can get hard. We try to handle these situations in an honest and professional way,” said Emig. “Everyone wants to know what we are going to do in a particular situation, and the first thing we always do is find out all the facts. So yes, there is stress.” “Above all we try keeping a good relationship with the media,” said Emig. “We realize the press has a job to do. We have a stopping point for the information we can give and we hope they [the media] understand that.”Emig knows from personal experience what the media needs when asking his department for information. He originally studied to become a broadcast journalist, earning a degree in communications from Murray State in 1984. “I never worked in sports information as an undergraduate. I did not feel I was good at those disciplines (radio/television) to get a job,” said Emig. “It hit me on the head, sports information, so I came to Ohio State to get my master’s degree and worked in the sports information office while going to school.”After getting his master’s from OSU, Emig got his first job in the sports information field at Southern Illinois University, before moving to Temple University in August 1989. Emig was promoted in March 1998 to head OSU’s 34 sports. There will be 35 when women’s ice hockey is added in Autumn Quarter 1999.