Since his arrival at Austin Peay 30 years ago, Brad Kirtley literally has enjoyed the best seat in the house witnessing the athletic department’s “Golden Age.” During his tenure the Governors and Lady Govs have captured 50 regular-season or postseason Ohio Valley Conference championships.
After spending nearly six years in the newspaper profession before working in Southeast Missouri State’s sports information office, Kirtley arrived at APSU as the department’s sports information director in the Winter 1984. He has been responsible for publicizing all 15 sports at some point in his career, in particular during the first 15 years when no assistant existed. Currently he handles publicity for football, men’s basketball, and men and women’s golf.
In fact, Kirtley was responsible for the restoration of the office’s fulltime secretarial position in the mid-1980s, and nearly 15 years later turned that position into a fulltime assistant when Cody Bush was hired. Bush has continued in that position since 1999. Then in 2010 he was able to hire a second fulltime sports information assistant when Alaric Klinghard was hired. Colby Wilson now holds that position.
The Cape Girardeau, Mo., native has produced media guides (now online publications) for all APSU sports. In the mid-1980s, he worked with the late Bob Bibb and Coca-Cola to produce four-color media guide covers for the department’s revenue sports media guides. He also created post-season media guide publications for multiple sports, including men’s basketball, baseball and most recently the NCAA Golf Regional in Tempe, Ariz., and the Dustin Korte piece for the NCAA Championship.
Along the way Kirtley assisted with game promotions, in particular during the first half of his tenure, resulting in posters and schedule cards being produced for the respective Govs and Lady Govs sports.
He has represented APSU by volunteering at NCAA events, including the 2012 Basketball Regional in Nashville. He has been invited to work at this spring’s NCAA Women’s Final Four in Nashville.
Kirtley has provided written athletics-related content for APSU’s Alumni publication for the past 30 years, including the first sports features written by anyone other than the school’s public relations staff. He produces, along with editing, written content for APSU’s athletics website, Let’sGoPeay.com, and also has provided numerous features on the website.
Kirtley spearheaded multiple publicity and All-America campaigns, in particular for Bubba Wells and Trenton Hassell, who earned Playboy All-American in 2001-02. He also helped APSU maximize national publicity with the Wells’ leg injury/return from media outlets such as NBC (Today Show), CBS (At the Half), USA Today and Los Angeles Times.
He is a member of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), having served on multiple committees. Twice Kirtley served as cohost of student-worker table topic program at the organization’s annual convention.
He has supervised more than 150 student workers, five who went on to become members of the profession. Kirtley has helped develop interns who later went onto become sports information professionals at Florida Atlantic, Cincinnati, Stetson, Sewanee, Curry College, Alabama State, Michigan and APSU.
One of Kirtley’s greatest accomplishments can be directly attributed to a leadership style that has nurtured growth and advancement within the profession. Kirtley’s office has seen signficant progression in everything from a web presence, which transitioned from in-house to a professionally-managed site, drastic improvement of the Governors Sports Network broadcast quality, development of APSU’s social media presence and eventual creation of the department’s Marketing and Promotions Coordinator position.
Through CoSIDA, he has been responsible for nominating numerous student-athletes for CoSIDA Academic All-America, including 26 (out of APSU’s total 30) earning either first-, second- or third-team Academic All-America under his watch. More than 100 APSU student-athletes have earned CoSIDA Academic All-District since 1990.
Kirtley also has taken great pride and responsibility in authoring nomination content for numerous OVC and national awards, in particular the league’s Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award; Austin Peay student-athletes have earned the prestigious honor nine times since inception in 1998-99.
He has served on numerous University committees, including the Hall of Fame Committee for the past 30 years as well as being an original member of the University’s Peay Pride Committee.
