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http://www.omniture.com --> Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage O-Zone Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad August 12, 2006 Rosenthal steps down as Southern Oregon SID RICH ROSENTHAL The person responsible for publicizing and promoting Southern Oregon University athletics for the past 12 years has announced his resignation. Rich Rosenthal, the school's sports information director, is leaving his post to pursue business opportunities in the Rogue Valley. His last day at SOU is Aug. 21. "SOU enriched my life for 12 great years," Rosenthal said. "Covering the Raiders during the most successful era of Raider Athletics was a lot of fun. I considered being an SID to be a hobby rather than a job for a very long time, and SOU made it worthwhile to stay far longer than I ever imagined. "I'm leaving (SOU) with a heavy heart, but I'm looking forward to fresh challenges." During his tenure, Raider sports publications, which Rosenthal created from scratch upon his 1994 arrival in Ashland, won 24 NAIA or College Sports Information Directors of America contests. He wrote over 4,000 pages of press releases and game day brochures, and he designed and maintained SOU's athletics Web site, www.sousports.com , which was judged the country's third-best in an NAIA evaluation. Rosenthal wrote hundreds of student-athlete biographical sketches and spearheaded the nomination of SOU's first four CoSIDA-selected Academic All-Americans, a Burger King Scholar-Athlete award-winner which resulted in a $10,000 contribution to the school's general scholarship fund in 1997 and 17 NAIA Player-of-the-Week honorees. Rosenthal, 35, was the inaugural recipient of Cascade Conference SID-of-the-Year honors in 2000, and was selected to serve a three-year term on the CoSIDA Board of Directors in 2002, becoming one of the youngest board members in the organization's history. The longest-serving SID in school history was a key behind-the-scenes operative in record-setting athletic department fundraising campaigns between 1997 and '04, and he helped the Lithia/Raider Club Golf Shootout more than double its revenues in four seasons as tournament coordinator. Rosenthal lists covering SOU's fourth NAIA wrestling championship in 2001 as a career highlight as well as publicizing 16 football, basketball, volleyball and cross country teams that qualified for national postseason play. He intends to serve as a volunteer assistant for the SOU volleyball team this fall. "I'm not moving away (from Ashland), I'm just moving on," Rosenthal said. "I look forward to supporting Raider Athletics for years to come and watching the games with my family." Leave a Comment: Advertisement: Advertisement: Paid Advertising Inkjet Printers Student Loans Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.