Fresno State Athletics
Turning Heads With Publications Awards
7/6/2005 12:00:00 AM | General
July 5, 2005
FRESNO, Calif.- The Fresno State Athletics Department is fortunate to have many people who are regionally and nationally honored for excellence. The coaches and student-athletes are easy to recognize, but few in the department have won as many awards as Publications Coordinator DeAnna Turner.Turner annually adds to her collection of honors from the College Sports Information Director's of America (CoSIDA), the organizing body for collegiate media and information specialists. CoSIDA presents many awards annually from Academic All-America awards, to citations for writing and community service. It also recognizes and honors excellence for publications, as the various media guides and game programs are rated and ranked on both a regional and national level.
Over the past 13 years, Turner has received enough citations, plaques and certificates to wallpaper her tiny office twice. Several of Fresno State's publications through the years have been rated "Best in the Nation", including the 2005 softball media guide. The 2005 Bulldog football media guide was ranked first among west coast schools - higher than every Pac 10 program - and finished 13th in the nation.
Turner began her association with Fresno State athletics as a student in 1990. From there, she was hired as an Assistant Media Relations Director in 1992, later growing into her present role in the department.
She is responsible for all of the printed materials produced by the department, which include posters, schedule cards, game programs, flyers, brochures and media guides.
A media guide is a comprehensive publication similar in size to a magazine that showcases a specific sport. It has biographical information about student-athletes and coaches. It also is an easy reference guide for the history, records and tradition of the Bulldog sport and has plenty of excellent photos. Media guides are judged by a CoSIDA panel for content, appearance, writing style, overall design and functionality.
Diehard fans cherish media guides, which are updated at the beginning of each sports season, and coaches consider them critical for recruiting prospective student-athletes.
"Media guides are so important for our recruiting," said football coach Pat Hill. "In a lot of cases the media guide is the link to a player and parents. You only get one chance to make a good first impression and when that media guide arrives in the mail at a recruit's home, I know it is something that best represents what Bulldog football is all about. DeAnna does an amazing job. Our media guides aren't as big as those from BCS schools, but they are nicer. She's really creative and makes our program look good. She's a very hard worker and really cares about making the Bulldogs look good. She can do it so well because she's a little Bulldog herself."
Turner graduated Magna Cum Laude from Fresno State in 1991 with a degree in journalism and an emphasis in advertising. She expected to pursue advertising as a professional career and was involved in advertising competitions while in college. After losing one of those competitions - a national championship by 1/8 of a point - she realized there is a fine line between success and failure in the competitive advertising industry.
During her senior year, while looking at other career options, a friend told her to pursue a part-time job for students in the Bulldog Media Relations office. After meeting with Scott Johnson, then the director of media relations who later became the director of athletics at Fresno State, Turner offered to volunteer for one week to prove that she could handle the job. After a week, Johnson offered her a paid position. During that year she worked with a variety of sports, serving as the media relations liaison for the Bulldog golf and track and field teams. Upon graduating, she began a one-year paid internship, in which she continued to work on publications but also was the media relations representative for the women's basketball team.
As an intern, Turner used her creativity and ideas to assist others in the office with their publications. She did some research, and found that Fresno State could save about $60,000 per year from its printing budget by hiring an "in house" publications coordinator. Not long after sharing that proposal with Johnson, she was hired as the first publications coordinator in the athletics department. She described working in the Fresno State media relation office as a "great teaching environment". Turner is one of the shining stars from an office that has produced graduates who have done well in a variety of journalism and sports public relations fields.
"When I first started in the office, I just loved it," Turner said. "I love athletics. I played basketball, softball and tennis in high school. What I really enjoyed is the thrill of working at events. I started by doing stats at games or working for television. It was great. When I first came up with the idea that an in house publications person would save the school a lot of money, only a few schools around the country had publications coordinators. Now, nearly all do, so they soon figured out how important and cost efficient it can be."
She honed her craft with very little professional training. Admittedly she was self-taught, but always has a hunger for learning more. Despite the number of awards and citations, she only cares about the finished product.
"The awards are nice, but they are very subjective," she said. "There have been guides I've done that I was very proud of that never won awards and some I've done that I wasn't that pleased with that won awards, so you have to take some of that with a grain of salt. To me, I'm satisfied if a coach or student-athlete likes what I made, or that I did my best to make the university look good. I love the drama and the excitement of college athletics. I want to bring that out to anyone who sees one of our publications. I want them to want to read more and learn more about the Bulldogs. I want to bring that passion and the Bulldog spirit to life."
A native of Kerman, Calif., Turner grew up as a self proclaimed "farmer's daughter" and has been a lifelong Bulldog fan and Valley resident. Fresno State was the natural choice for her to attend college. She never imagined going anywhere else.
"Back when I was traveling (with the women's basketball team), I always enjoyed coming back to Fresno," she said. "I love the feeling of being here. It's home. I love the location and being where we are located in California. You go a couple hours north and you feel like you are in Maine or a few hours south and you'd swear you are in Mexico. You have the mountains to the east and the beaches to the west. What else could someone want?"
Some of her favorite memories have to do with Bulldog success stories. She fondly remembers the 1992 Freedom Bowl win over USC and how she met her husband at, of all places, the press box of Beiden Field during the 1991 NCAA baseball regional championships. Bill Turner was working in the press box as a student helper during the tournament. He continues to volunteer in the press box as his schedule allows.
When she's not crafting another award winning publication, you'll find her spraying colors in a different fashion, at one of the area paintball fields. Or she may be found on a stream in the Sierra Nevada Range trout fishing with Bill and two young sons, Jake and Joey. Turner is also a self-described Disneyland fanatic, whose annual pass gets plenty of use during the year.
"To me, Disneyland is what life is all about," she said. "It the happiest place on earth and a place where people can enjoy life to the fullest. I've never had a bad experience there and when I hear people complain about long lines, or crowds or traffic, they just don't get it. It's about living life to the fullest and enjoying your surroundings. You only get one chance to live life and I want to experience the best of times with my husband and my sons."
She also considers herself a "cool boy's mom", because she loves to fish, camp and sword fight. Despite her petite frame, she's an avid weight lifter and extremely strong.
She puts that physical strength to a test at least once a month playing paintball. Turner picked-up the game about a year ago and never let the lack of women players stop her from playing. She proudly displays her battle scars (bruises) to some members of the department.
"When I tell people I play paintball, they think I'm whacked-out or something," she said. "Some don't believe me because I'm small and when I go out there some of the guys aren't sure about playing with a woman, but I've proven myself."
Turner began playing when seeking a way to relieve stress. After several invitations from a friend to play, she finally agreed and now has become addicted to the sport. It brings out her competitive nature and it is something she will want to play with her sons someday. She has photos in her office of her in a camouflage outfit with a helmet and goggles, making her completely unidentifiable.
"At first I thought no way," she said. "But once I started it was awesome. It's the most exhilarating experience and your adrenaline really gets flowing"
Additionally, she enjoys the game for more philosophical reasons.
"The real reason why I play is over the last three years I've lost a lot of people in my life who were close to me and it made me look at my own mortality," Turner said. "Having kids and seeing how fast they are growing is very scary to me. It's a reminder of how fast life can pass you by. You can't sit back and let that happen. I'm not going to. The first time I played, it made me feel so alive. The adrenaline is additive and it makes you so aware of your surroundings."
According to Turner, paintball brings out three key things that are important to her to be successful in life.
1.) "To be able to take and endure pain."
2.) "To overcome fears and adversity and to become more mentally tough."
3.) "To be able to work as a team to achieve a common goal."
"For me, not being very big is a challenge," she said. "I have to wear a lot of protective gear, which is really heavy. So in order to be a good player, I have to be physically fit and be able to wear that stuff for six hours. I have to be prepared. It also reminds me how important it is to work my way out of difficult situations. If you are going to sit back in paintball, you won't win. You have to attack and always be on attack. That's the way I want to live. I want to attack life and not let it attack me. Life's hard and presents a lot of challenges, but every time I play paintball it reminds me that I can overcome the hard things life throws at me. You have to work as a team overcome your fears and be mentally tough if you want to win in paintball but more importantly in life."
According to those who know her best, Turner will pass that passion on to her sons.
Kelly Paramo, an assistant academic advisor for Fresno State, is a longtime friend of Turner and the two worked together briefly in the Bulldog Media Relations office.
"I sort of followed in DeAnna's footsteps," Paramo said. "We were both journalism majors and worked in the media relations office. She was ahead of me and I looked up to her. We have become good friends. A lot of people look up to DeAnna and value her advice. She's a great Mom. You can tell that her kids are the highlight of her life. She does a lot with them and creates a balance between having a family and a professional career. I appreciate and respect her tremendously for that. She's a very cool mom and does a lot of fun stuff with her kids. How many Moms want to take their sons down to run around on Bulldog Stadium after games?"
Whether it is experiencing the plethora of sense-numbing activities with her family at Disneyland, attacking a defender on a Fresno paintball field, or simply designing a vivid publication that brings attention and prestige to her university, bringing color to life is a way of life for DeAnna Turner.
