University of Tennessee Athletics
UT Announces Promotion of Satkowiak
April 15, 2016 | General
The University of Tennessee Athletics Department announced Friday the promotion of Tom Satkowiak to assistant athletic director for media relations.
Satkowiak (pronounced: sat-KO-vee-ACK), who has served as an associate media relations director since 2008, will have direct oversight of the Media Relations Department for Tennessee Athletics, which coordinates promotional efforts for 20 sports and nearly 500 student-athletes. He will remain the primary contact for men's basketball, entering his ninth year with that program in 2016-17.
"Tom is very deserving of this opportunity," said Ryan Robinson, Senior Associate AD for Communications. "As a two-time graduate of the University of Tennessee, Tom understands the magnitude of work involved with running the Media Relations Department and making sure we are assisting the media and providing information that our fans want on a daily basis. His experience and the relationships he has established will pay immediate dividends. I'm excited for Tom to have a more defined leadership role. Anyone that has been around Tom knows he will provide a great sounding board for our staff and will have great impact."
Satkowiak, 35, has been a member of UT's full-time staff since September 2005.
He oversaw the basketball program's media relations efforts during the historic 2009-10 season, in which Tennessee advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in the program's 101-year history. He also coordinated publicity during Tennessee's march to the Sweet Sixteen in 2014.
During his tenure with the men's basketball program, Satkowiak has promoted and provided media training and personal branding consultation for four NBA Draft picks, seven first-team All-SEC selections, one Freshman All-American and 16 student-athletes who went on to sign professional basketball contracts. He also has developed strong working relationships with local and national media as well as television network production and broadcast crews.
His extensive crisis management experience ranges from a student-athlete suffering a sudden cardiac arrest event in a UT athletic facility to navigating multiple coaching staff transitions.
On the digital media front, Satkowiak helped to devise the earliest social media strategies for several Tennessee athletic programs. His list of 50 tips for responsible Twitter use by collegiate student-athletes--initially published online in September 2011--was featured on ESPN.com, CoSIDA.com and NACDA.com and also has been used by athletic departments around the country as a training tool for student-athletes, coaches and administrators.
And in the summer of 2012, Yahoo! Sports touted the Tennessee basketball program for taking a "more progressive approach to social media than its peers."
Satkowiak has successfully collaborated with other departments under UT's athletic communications umbrella on numerous projects. Prior to the 2012-13 season, he conceptualized and then collaborated with UT's athletic broadcasting and marketing teams to execute Tennessee basketball's "Make a STATEment" recruiting/marketing campaign, which helped land one of two five-star recruiting targets.
He also has played an active support role in the basketball program's on-campus recruiting efforts.
A native of Bay City, Michigan, Satkowiak transitioned to basketball after four years with the Tennessee baseball program, during which he publicized the team's run to the 2005 College World Series and promoted 11 players who earned All-American or Freshman All-American acclaim. Six Vols from that era went on to make MLB rosters.
After initially joining Tennessee's media relations staff as a student in the fall of 2002, Satkowiak spent two years as a graduate assistant in the UT office before being promoted to a full-time position. He served as editor of the Tennessee football game program and yearbook from 2005-10 and has helped coordinate logistical and stat crew operations in Tom Elam Press Box during home football gamedays for the past five seasons.
A 2002 summa cum laude Tennessee graduate with a degree in communications/public relations, Satkowiak also earned a master's in sport studies from UT in 2005.
Satkowiak and his wife, Brooke, of Athens, Tennessee, reside in West Knoxville with their Bernese Mountain Dogs, Crockett and Cafego.
