SUNY Cortland Athletics

The senior sports information director (SID) of the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC), Fran Elia is in his 22nd year at SUNY Cortland in 2012-13. He started in the profession as a volunteer assistant at Siena College, his alma mater, during the 1990-91 school year before accepting a one-year internship as the assistant SID at Cortland the following year. In 1992, he was hired as Cortland’s SID replacing Peter Koryzno, who became the College’s director of public relations.

Elia oversees the publicity of Cortland’s 25 varsity athletic teams. During his tenure, Cortland has hosted numerous conference and national tournaments, including the 1996 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships and two National Collegiate Gymnastics Association Division III Championships. Elia also serves on Cortland’s C-Club Board of Directors.

Elia received the Fraser Stokes Award for dedication to SUNY Cortland Athletics in 1996. He was named the inaugural chair of the SUNYAC Sports Information Directors Committee during the 2004-05 school year, and in 2009 he earned the Eastern College Athletic Conference – Sports Information Directors Association’s (ECAC-SIDA) Irving T. Marsh Service Bureau Award for excellence in the profession.

In addition to his duties at Cortland, Elia oversaw the Upstate New York Division III Football Statistical Bureau from 1993-94, assisted with the compilation of weekly Intercollegiate Soccer Association of America women’s soccer polls from 1992-94, and coordinated ECAC Upstate New York women’s basketball all-star selections from 1995-97. He wrote a weekly regional column for the Web site D3football.com in 2000 and is currently a D3hoops.com Top 25 women’s basketball poll voter. Elia also served as a results auditor in the Empire State Games media headquarters every summer from 1991-2001.

The Schenectady, N.Y., native graduated from Siena in 1988 and worked four years as a men’s basketball student team manager at the school. He served as a staff auditor for the Big Eight accounting firm Coopers and Lybrand and took graduate courses in Communication Studies at The University at Albany prior to coming to Cortland.

UPDATE: Elia was selected as CoSIDA's Warren Berg Award winner in 2015.