RELEASE DATE: 5/23/07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Holtz to Receive Esposito Award -- Headed to West Point

MANSFIELD – Mansfield sports information student-assistant Jon Holtz (Manchester, NY/Red Jacket) has been named the 2007 Bill Esposito Memorial Award winner by the Eastern College Athletic Conference Sports Information Directors Association (ECAC-SIDA) and has accepted a position on the Athletic Communications staff at the US Military Academy at West Point.

The Bill Esposito Memorial Award was established in 1995 to recognize a graduating college senior who wishes to pursue a career in the athletics communications field. It was created by ECAC-SIDA to honor and perpetuate the memory of one of the sports information profession’s true patriarchs. Esposito was the Sports Information Director at St. John’s University for 25 years.

The ECAC-SIDA is a professional organization of sports information directors that represent more than 350 colleges and university’s from Maine to North Carolina. That list includes some of the biggest schools in the nation in all divisions including all the Ivy League schools.

Holtz will be presented with the Award at the  ESPN Awards dinner held during the 52^nd ECAC-SIDA Workshop in Baltimore this June before leaving Mansfield this summer to assume his position at Army. He will be the head media relations contact for the Black Knights cross country, track and field, tennis, and sprint football teams.

He is the first Mansfield University assistant to earn the honor.

The following was released by ECAC-SIDA president Kent Cherrington:

Holtz certainly possesses the attributes associated with this honor. He has worked with Mansfield University Sports Information Director Steve McCloskey as a student-assistant since the fall of 2005 and will begin his career as a sports information professional at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY following his graduation in May.

“Over the past two years, Jon Holtz has been a student-assistant in name only," said Steve McCloskey. "During perhaps the most difficult year in Mansfield sports information history, Jon stepped up and handled virtually all the day-by-day responsibilities of the office while my services were directed elsewhere on campus. Jon has a great understanding of the mission of sports information and its importance to our student-athletes, parents, fans and alums. He believes that everything he does in sports information makes a difference in someone’s life. Jon has the abilities and skills to be a sports information director at any school in the country."

At Mansfield, Holtz wrote press releases, feature stories, and season previews; completely redesigned the athletics department website, www.gomounties.com, handled statistics at numerous sporting events and hosted the 2006 Joel Stephens Memorial Baseball Tournament, an international tournament that is held on campus each summer.

Holtz, who received  a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in creative writing this spring, was also active in several other extracurricular endeavors throughout his undergraduate career. He served as captain of the Mansfield cross country and track and field teams and is a USATF Level I Certified Track and Field Coach. He is also a four-time Mansfield Presidential Scholar-Athlete and is a member of both the Mu Xi Literary Society and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.