St. Thomas’ Sports Information Director Gene McGivern received the Sid Hartman Media Award at the ninth annual Minnesota Football Honors Sunday night in recognition of his work.

In McGivern’s 22 years at St. Thomas, he has seen seven NCAA championship teams and 15 national coach-of-the-year honors. Before coming to St. Thomas, he served as Augsburg’s sports information director for six years, making him the longest-tenured sports information director in the MIAC.

“It’s quite something that (the award) comes to the Division III level, and obviously tells you people have noticed the quality of his work,” St. Thomas Athletic Director Steve Fritz said.

The Sid Hartman Media Award, named after the longtime sports columnist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is given by the Minnesota chapter of the National Football Foundation. Previous winners of the award include WCCO’s Mike Max, NBC’s Michele Tafoya and KARE 11’s Randy Shaver.

McGivern considers it an honor to receive the award but is more pleased to see the field of sports information recognized.

“I’m most excited, really, for my peers in the sports information world. In our world, there’s a lot of people that work really hard and promote the school, the coaches, the teams, and it comes with a territory; you’re out of the spotlight and you don’t really get that kind of recognition,” McGivern said. “I would’ve been thrilled to see any of my peers in the conference recognized. There’s several other people that do a terrific job that are certainly worthy of this honor too.”

McGivern is in charge of handling media relations for each of the Tommies’ 22 varsity sports. He manages the official site of St. Thomas athletics, Tommiesports.com, as well as his own sports column on the site, Gene’s Blog, which covers a variety of topics regarding St. Thomas, the MIAC and D-III athletics.

Fritz said McGivern has done well when it comes to handling the heavy workload.

“Not only do you get called on for the regular year, you get called on for NCAA runs, so it’s a big job, and he’s handled it very well, obviously, for 22 years,” Fritz said. “I really think he’s the top guy in the whole area here.”

McGivern also contributes feature stories to the St. Thomas magazine. Some of his feature writing over the years has been recognized by the College Sports Information Directors of America; he has received two Best in the Nation awards and six Best in District awards.

The recent strength and success of Tommie athletics has led McGivern to cover two Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowls and 15 NCAA home playoff games in the past seven years alone.

“With all the experiences I’ve had, you really appreciate how hard it is to reach a Stagg Bowl in football and to get to a Final Four in basketball and to have teams ranked in the top five, top 10 nationally,” McGivern said. “You know there’s going to be more work, but it’s just a great opportunity when those good seasons happen.”

The 2015-2016 athletics season has been a busy year for McGivern. Along with the football team’s Stagg Bowl appearance in the fall, St. Thomas set a new MIAC record for winter sports, winning seven of the possible eight regular-season titles. A national championship win for the men’s basketball team capped off the winter athletics success. And although these wins may mean more work for McGivern, he hopes there’s more success to come.

“Being at St. Thomas, you get a chance to work a lot of playoff games, and you get a chance to tell a good story, so I’m really grateful of that,” McGivern said. “This award, as much as anything, it’s a reflection on St. Thomas and the many opportunities you get here to promote the teams, the university and the student athletes and the coaches.”

Joey Geske can be reached at gesk8583@stthomas.edu.