Who livestreams Macalester’s sporting events on the court, in the pool and on the field? Who writes up the game summaries afterwards? Who posts the highlights on social media? It’s all overseen by Macalester’s Director of Sports Information (SID) Matt McLagan. In February, McLagan received the 25-Year Award from College Sports Communicators, a national association for college athletics communications. The award celebrates 25 years of service from collegiate SIDs.

After starting out his career in teaching, McLagan eventually switched to corporate communications, then sports information at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Va., at 31 years old. The Mac Weekly sat down with McLagan to unpack his 25 years in sports communications and his journey to Macalester, where he’s spent the past 11 years. The interview has been edited for readability and length.

How was your first job [in sports information] similar or different to your work now?

Things have changed in sports information quite a bit, as they have in the world. That was the fall or the summer of 2000, so websites were pretty new and were beginning to be emphasized as the main medium. We were still trying to get everything into the newspapers. That was the history of the job: you’re trying to get your stories, your student athletes, your scores — everything — into the newspapers and maybe even onto the TV news. When I started, that was still there, but also we had our website, so instead of just putting it on the fax machine and hoping that somebody at the other end picks it up, we had a place to put all the work that we were doing — that includes statistics, photos. There was a little bit of video, but not like what we’re doing today. I was in charge of the women’s basketball media guide, game notes and different things that you do at Division I.

So, it’s different here. We don’t print anything. At Macalester, we live stream all of our home events (except for golf and cross country, for probably obvious reasons). That’s under me in this department, and all the social media. I do have a multimedia coordinator who now assists with that, but those things did not exist when I started. Things have changed quite a bit, and now we’re wondering what’s going to change again? What will be the next big change?

You’ve been to Paris and New York. Could you tell me a little bit more about your travels in sports information?

I got lucky with my first [sports information] job [at VCU]. I traveled with the women’s basketball team, so wherever they played, I would go along. My role was to cover them, [and] I also worked at the table, doing the score book. The road team also did a score book to make sure that the home team wasn’t doing anything like changing numbers of the score.

That was basically a year and a half with that team. [On] my second road trip, they played the [University of Minnesota] Gophers. So I got a trip to come home. After that, we went to New York City. That was the first time I’ve been in New York City.

I later worked in New Jersey at Caldwell University, which is a Division II university. The athletic director was also the men’s basketball coach, and he invited me on all of their larger trips. The big one was Paris over the summer, which is the only time I’ve been overseas, and why it’s still significant to me. We just played exhibition games, and I covered them both. I did a blog, photos and things like that. It was kind of a way to compensate me — my boss offering this free trip to Paris — pretty amazing. With that team, we went to Florida several times, also Colorado. My only time spending a significant amount of time in Colorado was with the basketball team.

Interestingly enough, I don’t really travel much here with Macalester, mainly because everything we do is local. When our teams do travel outside of the region, we usually have other sports going on at home, so I stay to cover those things. Our water polo team won the conference championship, which is very exciting. They’re going to play in the national tournament in California. Normally, I would go, but we have an extremely busy weekend at home, with track, baseball, softball all happening at home, and I need to be here. I cover everything here in Macalester, in our athletic department. At VCU, I covered a couple sports a season.

What brought you back to Minnesota?

I’m from West St. Paul, which isn’t far from here, and my wife is from Austin, Minn. She’s a Carleton College grad, and I went to Concordia College in Moorhead for two years before graduating from the University of Minnesota. So we’re very familiar with the Macalester area.

This was — when I was growing up — our extended neighborhood. We’d come down to Grand Avenue, hang out in the Mac-Groveland area. I went to several track meets back in the day. We used to go to the Scottish Fair, which has now returned, but when I was a kid, it was a big deal. I’m part Scottish, and my dad would bring us all to the Scottish fair when we were kids. As a high school senior, I actually played my last high school soccer game in [the] Macalester stadium. We played St. Paul Academy in the Region Tournament and lost the heartbreaker, and I’ll never forget it. That was right on this field, where I work so much in the fall.

So what happened? We always kind of wanted to move back home, and as I mentioned, we moved all those times with my wife’s job. We never moved from my job, and then [a colleague from St. Paul] said you should look at the [Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC)] schools. There are two main job websites, the college sports communicators website and also the NCAA marketplace. I hadn’t looked on either of those sites for a long time, and because of that conversation, I decided to take a look. 

The first job listed was Macalester.  My wife said, ‘Just apply and see what happens,’ and then I applied, and I got a call back. I said, ‘I got a call back. What do you want me to do?’ She said ‘Just keep going. We’ll figure it out.’ I was fortunate to get an offer and accept it. I knew exactly what Macalester was, what they meant to the community and the great education that they provided for their students. It was a no-brainer for me — come back here and be back with family and friends, and also work at a great institution like Macalester. I still feel that way 11 years later.

Your most hectic and most exciting days — what do they look like for you?

They’re usually hand in hand. When we have a lot going on, it’s also very exciting. I enjoy all of our sports [and]  events — the games, the track meets, the swim meets — they’re all very exciting to me. I love covering them, but everything takes time, and sometimes more than one person, so I do lean on students. 

I have some student workers, some of whom work at The Mac Weekly, and they help me — from working a camera, to helping with stats at the stat table. I have students that can help with taking photos and video. I have some students that help write the recaps. If you want to look at a home game, I’m responsible for the stats, the webcast, social media and the post game recap that we put on the website. A lot of times it’s covered by me, but on a busy day, we’ll have students fill in. 

One time we had an indoor track meet, an indoor swim meet and a basketball double-header all happening in the[Leonard Center (LC), basically all at the same time. I spread it out amongst our students and myself to try to balance all of that. 

A lot of it is just seeing the great performances that we do. It might have been senior day, if I’m remembering correctly, in 2025 — we had an extremely large men’s and women’s swimming senior class, more than 20 seniors between the two teams, so this is an enormous class. I went to take the picture for social media, and they’re crying. It was really emotional. I became emotional too, just being adjacent to their journey.  I’m racing to get to take this photo to put on social media, and it kind of hits me from the side — this is a really special moment for our student athletes, our coaches and our staff. 

This year, we had both a basketball home basketball game and then the NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament happening at the same time. That’s a rarity, so much fun to be a part of. I was kind of split. I was walking back from the basketball game, still in the parking lot heading towards Macalester’s stadium when we scored a goal. Very exciting to hear from that perspective, but I missed the goal. Excitement, chaos, all these things happening at once. 

I don’t know if there’s another job like that. I think people really don’t realize what I do. I’m kind of behind the scenes, but it’s a pretty cool job. A lot of really fun moments happen throughout my normal work day.

How has Macalester sports information changed from you being here?

The changes with Macalester sports information are due mainly to the changes in sports information. Andy Johnson was the previous SID’s name. [He was] definitely more of a writer, journalist, statistician, focused on getting things to in the newspaper [and] probably was thrown a big curve ball when the website came along. 

I did our social media at Caldwell, so when I came here, I just assumed [it was part of my job], and started doing it. I got an email from somebody saying, ‘Thank you for doing social media for us,’ and it was an email from Communications. I think they were just glad that somebody else was here to do it. When I got here, we fully modernized everything. I don’t think the previous SIDs did a lot for the webcast. I do that entirely. Nobody else — myself and students.

Was there ever any feedback you got from the community or alumni, about how having more  information readily available changed their engagement with athletics? 

I see it a little bit on social media, with engagement. It has been 11 years — I think we had [around] 800 followers on Instagram when I got here, and we’re at about 4,800 followers now. 

I have had some people reach out and say, ‘Thank you for doing what you’re doing.’ I get emails from parents that are grateful. One thing I try to do is I try to put as many names in our post-game recaps as possible, just to have as many people [as possible] receive attention for what they’re doing on the field.

You do a lot at work, but what do you do outside of work?

My main activity outside of work is [playing] ice hockey. I play in a men’s league, on a couple different teams. Some people at Macalester may recognize the Moose. I play on the Moose, and we play the Macalester men’s club hockey team twice a year, which is fun. I set that up, so I’m able to combine my worlds a little bit. I like to try to stay active when I’m not so busy. I try to run a little bit as well. 

I have two children. They’re adults now, but they are living with us. So spending time with them, I know that they won’t be living with us forever. That’ll change once they get their feet under them, but while they’re here, we try to take advantage of that, hanging out in the backyard, barbecuing, going out to restaurants and breweries — we like to do things like that together. I would say hockey and family probably are my biggest diversions from work.

Is there anything else you wish I’d asked about?

I mentioned that I have students, students that work for me, and things 11 years here, the students and the staff, the coaching staff and administrators, the people that I’ve met here at Macalester, that’s the best part. 

I don’t really know how to put it into words, but it’s the most meaningful part of this job — being able to work with the people here at Macalester. I work harder because I want to serve them in the best way possible. I’ve worked with many students through the years, and it’s always fun to see them go on and do such wonderful things, like all of you Macalester students do when you leave.  It’s been the most impactful part of my 11 years here at Macalester.