Fran Elia has worked in sports information at SUNY Cortland since the 1991-92 school year. He started in the profession as a volunteer assistant at Siena College, his alma mater, in 1990-91 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 was inducted into the SUNY Cortland C-Club Hall of Fame as an honorary member in 2012 and he received the Fraser Stokes Award for dedication to SUNY Cortland Athletics in both 1996 and 2024. He serves on Cortland’s C-Club Board of Directors. 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, and in 2015 was selected as the College Sports Information Directors of America's (CoSIDA) Warren Berg Award winner.
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.
Elia and his wife, Heather, reside in New Woodstock, N.Y., with their cat, Peaches.
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