Locally: Retired Gonzaga sports director Oliver Pierce named to College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame
Retired Gonzaga University Assistant Athletics Director/Sports Information Director Oliver Pierce has been honored for his 33 years of service in the field of college athletics communication and will be one of six members enshrined in the College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame in June.
A CSC (formerly CoSIDA) member all those years, Pierce spent 26 years as the assistant athletic director and sports information director at Gonzaga University. He retired in 2014.
Pierce joined the Bulldogs in 1989 and was responsible for the overall operations of the sports information office, overseeing a staff responsible for publicizing Gonzaga’s combined 31 NCAA postseason appearances involving the sports of men’s basketball, women’s basketball, volleyball, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, women’s golf, baseball and women’s rowing.
He began his sports communications career during his undergraduate years at Washington State University when he worked in the WSU sports information office. Following graduation from WSU, Pierce served as a sportswriter for the Tri-City Herald in Pasco then returned to his alma mater as the assistant SID in 1977-85.
In 2011, he was awarded the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Katha Quinn Award for outstanding service to the media and to the game of college basketball. Pierce received a CSC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.
Pierce directed the media campaign that led to Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison sharing the 2006 USBWA Oscar Robertson Trophy as national player of the year. He was editor of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association monthly newsletter in 1991-94, served on the West Coast Conference (WCC) awards committee, and is a former chair of the WCC Sports Information Directors.
Shooting
Members of the Spokane Junior Rifle Club competed in the Washington State Junior Olympic Three Position Air Rifle Championships on Feb. 11.
The match was a qualifier for the CMP National Championships in July. Individual and team scores were tallied.
The precision division SJRC team of Garrett Pearsall, Sean Kegley, Ensley Breeden and Tanner Krebs took the bronze medal with a score of 2,275, just shy of the automatic qualifying standard score of 2,280.
SJRC shooters who finished in the Top 10 individually were Pearsall (575, 5th place), Kegley (574, 6th) and Meghan Mix (568, 10th).