HobbsDailyReport.com
HICKORY – Jeremy Zalacca, who has worked in the athletic department of Pfeiffer University for the past five years, is coming to Lenoir-Rhyne University as an assistant athletic director in charge of athletic communications.
Zalacca, a New York native, was promoted to Assistant Athletic Director of Communications at Pfeiffer 18 months after he joined the school in July 2013.
ZALACCA
He’s moving into a position — generally titled as Sports Information Director (SID) — that was filled the previous 16 years by John Karrs, an LRU and St. Stephens High graduate who resigned on June 4.
Will Tyner has served as interim SID since Karrs left.
Zalacca is the eighth person hired to oversee athletic department communications at LRU. The first was Newton native Rick Strunk, who recently retired after more than 30 years with the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA).
LRU Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Kim Pate announced the hiring of Zalacca via a press release on Monday.
“I am honored to join the Lenoir-Rhyne family,” Zalacca in the press release. “I would like to thank Kim Pate for giving me the opportunity to work in this outstanding department.
“The energy and passion that she has instilled in her staff is infectious. and I am excited to join that group.
“I look forward to getting to know the student-athletes, coaches and alumni of Lenoir-Rhyne and working with them to promote this great community.”
In his five years at Pfeiffer, Zalacca reshaped the athletic communications department.
One of his main initiatives was improving Pfeiffer’s social media presence. He created YouTube and Instagram pages for the department when he first arrived and his work in social media had the Falcons ranked as high as No. 4 in NCAA Division II in likes/followers per enrollment, according to D2socialmedia.com.
As the Falcons transitioned to NCAA Division III, Zalacca also had Pfeiffer ranked No. 9 among schools at that level. Despite having an enrollment of fewer than 1,000 and not fielding a football team, Pfeiffer had the second-most Instagram followers of any USA South Athletic Conference member.
Zalacca quadrupled Pfeiffer’s Twitter and Facebook page followings during his tenure and did the graphic design across all platforms.
He completely rebranded the Pfeiffer’s athletics web page and also created a mobile app. Additionally, Zalacca created in-depth record books and gathered historical data for all of Pfeiffer’s athletic programs.
Zalacca was in charge of live streaming Pfeiffer home games and transitioned to streaming via YouTube last year. He was also responsible for writing press releases, website maintenance, all athletic social media platforms, statistics for all teams, hiring and training of scorer’s table and press box personnel and served on the Pfeiffer Athletics Senior Staff.
Zalacca also helped run the annual Sports Hall of Fame and All Sports Banquet events.
“Jeremy will bring tremendous experience, vision, and leadership to our athletics communication strategy while positioning the Bears’ social media, website, and digital platforms near the top with our DII peers,” Pate said in the press release.
Prior to coming to Misenheimer, Zalacca had two years of assistant sports information experience and also held positions at ESPN and Stats, LLC. He graduated from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y. with a bachelor’s degree in Sports Management and played basketball there.