(December 28, 2018) Any sports broadcaster with a significant other knows the challenges of nurturing personal relationships while building a career. Low pay, odd hours and frequent travel are challenging realities. STAA member Tim Slack has found a new job that relieves his family of those burdens. An STAA member, Slack is the new Sports Information Director/Associate Athletic Director at Arizona Western College in Yuma.
The opportunity is a blessing for Slack, his wife Krista and their one-year old son Zeke.
“We are really excited about the position, school, and community,” Slack grins. “This accomplishes a goal we’ve had since we got married of keeping Krista at home with our son, especially while he’s young.”
Slack’s sportscasting experience is varied. It includes affiliated and independent minor league baseball in California and North Carolina and sports radio and NCAA Division II basketball in Kansas. He even spent four years teaching and coaching high school baseball in Walnut Creek, CA.
“These last three years since I returned to broadcasting have certainly been filled with trials but I feel like I have grown professionally, and probably more importantly, personally as a result,” Slack says. “I have a really deep appreciation for anyone who finds a way to make the family/work balance successful.”
The AWC job opened when fellow STAA member Sam Hovan accepted a position at Longwood University in Virginia. Slack contacted Hovan after reading about Hovan’s move on the STAA website and realizing how much they share in common.
“I reached out to Sam based on a lot of his story and our similarities in what I consider an atypical broadcasting path,” says Slack. “We both taught high school, we worked in the American Association where we know some of the same people, and we both have families. I called him just to talk to him about his path and how he was able to find balance, as that has been an adjustment for my wife and I over the past year.
“We just talked about family and broadcasting. I learned a lot of discipline that he practices with his family to protect them and his employer.”
Slack applied to be Hovan’s replacement. He knew the school wanted to move quickly and figured they had gone in a different direction when he didn’t hear from them right away. “Then the week after Thanksgiving, I received an e-mail asking to interview. From there I was asked to come down to Yuma for an in-person interview. I fell in love with the town and community pretty quickly and was really blown away by the passion in the athletic department,” Slack recalls.
“It really struck me in my visit that my previous experiences and jobs match up perfectly with the direction of the school and that my family will really benefit from the tight-knight community.”
“One thing I’ve tapped into the last couple years within STAA is the great network of like-minded broadcasters who are eager to grow in what they do. It’s great practice for all the networking pieces that STAA produces and it’s an easy introduction because we share STAA in common. Sam was really gracious with his time in the middle of his own job transition.”
Slack has been an STAA member off and on since 2010. He’s used STAA’s resources to constantly refine and improve his broadcasting and his job market approach. “I’ve always tried to take the little bits from each STAA Insider newsletter and truly evaluate how I’m doing and what I could do better. I’ve made so many changes over the last few years — little adjustments that I feel like have added to a better overall presentation,” he says.
“When I started as a professional 10 years ago, I literally had no idea what I was doing in the market. As I’ve gone through my ups and downs, I have to believe I have used every STAA resource to grow as well as evaluate my shortcomings. I have become better at networking, better at honest criticism of my own work, and a better balance of patience/persistence.”
(Visit Tim’s STAA Talent Page).