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Olivet College has 27 men’s and women’s athletic programs. The school year is a packed schedule of sports from August to April. One person takes almost all information from these teams and puts it on display for all to see: Olivet College Sports Information Director Geoff Henson.
Henson has been at Olivet forover 15 years and is still working in things like statistics and social media. “I tell people I wear many different hats in the athletic department. Most people see me at an event doing stuff, doing stats,or taking photos. But there is all the stuff that happens before the game that I do plus the things after the game. I am the one that does a little bit of everything,” he said.
Press releases, programs, social media posts about the game, are all handled solely by Henson. One other thing he has been trying to improve is updating the record books for most sports at Olivet College. With all of this work, Henson has evolved with his position over the last decade.
“The job has changed so much prior to my time until now. Social media and the internet wasn’t big, and there wasn’t the live streaming to watch events. I can watch the live streams of events now, which has been a positive with writing press releases as they happen. I get things done more instantly,” Henson said.
“I take pride in my work here at Olivet with getting information out almost instantly, because people don’t go to ESPN or other sources. They can go to the website or social media directly. What I like about my position too is that every day is different. That is my job to support all sports equally as much as I can,” he said.
Before Olivet, Henson attended Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Henson took on his field of work in sports there, which was a part from the business realm he expected to go into.
“I did sports information as a work study at Baldwin Wallace. My former boss, who is still there, said that I was doing great at it and that I should look into it as a career. I stayed on there for 16 months in an internship learning more,” he said.
In October 2002, Henson came to Olivet.
“I had no idea about Olivet.The story goes that the sports information director at Ohio Wesleyan talked to Jerry Rashidat an Olivet College football match up between the two. Rashid worked in sports information and he was looking for a director. Mark Beckenbach at Ohio Wesleyan knew of me from my work study boss. I was interviewed and was offered the job,” Henson said. Henson moved to Michigan, and now lives in Charlotte.
Henson’s favorite sports are college basketball and college football. He also follows Major League Baseball when Olivet is out of the school year. “I love college athletics so much more than professional athletics. It’s fun to be a part the environment of Division three students going to school but also playing a sport.”
Henson has his father, two brothers, and a sister living in Ohio. “I do have two nephews and a niece and visiting with them is the best thing in the world. In September, it would be five years since my mom passed away from brain cancer. I told her that she won’t be around to be the greatest grandma in the world that I knew she would be, but I’ll be the greatest uncle in her place,” he said.