Several individuals and units within the Virginia Tech Athletics' external team have won national recognition in their efforts to promote and highlight Hokies teams, staff and student-athletes.
From the HokieVision/ACC Network group, Keely Ledford won a student production award in the 2019 Capital Emmys for her feature on Tessa Wyner. The video featured the surprise surrounding the earning of a scholarship in volleyball at Virginia Tech.
Mary Desmond was one of five college students selected for IGTV Playmakers Program for the Women's Final Four. As part of this program, Instagram selected one student at each school to create two-to-three IGTV episodes that highlighted his/her team. These IGTV episodes ran on each team's account, allowing the students to showcase their work to fans around the world. This initiative provided students the opportunity to help their schools share behind-the-scenes and exclusive content on Instagram with their fans.
Student broadcaster Evan Hughes claimed second place for 2020 Jim Nantz Award and was named an All-American by Sportscaster Talent Agency of America. The second-place finish by Hughes is the highest finish by a Virginia Tech student in the 12-year history of the competition.
Daniel Sabatino and Jon Laaser won a Silver Zedman Award this spring from the Society for Creative Professionals. The award was for the for the video Still Hokies in the category Sports.
The Virginia Tech Athletics Office of Marketing and Promotions earned a pair of national honors this year. The unit earned a Gold medal from the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators for the Virginia Tech football season ticket sales campaign. This is the first time that the unit has received Gold status.
The marketing office also earned a bronze medal for Digital Promotion for the #ForBud campaign. This campaign was centered around the school's honoring of longtime football defensive coordinator Bud Foster, who announced in the summer of 2019 he would retire following the 2019 football season.
From the Office of Strategic Communications, Jimmy Robertson, the senior director for content creation, earned multiple honors in the College Sports Information Directors of America's Fred Stabley, Sr. Writing Contest. Robertson has won numerous awards from CoSIDA over the past 20-plus years. This year, Robertson earned a second-place finish in the Athlete Profile category for his story on Carol Raffety of the Virginia Tech volleyball team. The story earned him a first-place finish in the District 3 voting. Robertson also earned a first-place in District 3 in Season Preview/Review for his preview feature on the 2019 Virginia Tech women's soccer team.
Carter W. Brown and John Sours earned First in the Nation honors from CoSIDA for their 2019-20 Virginia Tech Women's Basketball media guide. They had earned third place in that division the previous year.
As announced earlier, HokieVision, the video arm of Virginia Tech Athletics, has received two nominations for the 2020 SVG College Sports Media Awards in association with NACDA. HokieVision is a finalist in the live game category in the Collegiate Athletics division for the Dec. 6, 2019 men's basketball home game against Duke and in the live game category in the Collegiate Student division for the Nov. 16, 2019 men's basketball home game against Lehigh.
