When WSU men’s basketball got off the bus at about 11:30 p.m. March 23, hours after ending the season with a loss in the NCAA Tournament, there was one man Hayden Stinchfield, the Evergreen men’s basketball beat writer, wanted to find. Not Kyle Smith, nor Myles Rice, nor Jaylen Wells.
Hayden wanted to find Jim Crawford.
“I nudged past Oscar Cluff and Jaylen Wells, I found my way over to Jim. And he’s talking to someone, I waited for him to be done and he turned as though I had a question for him, and I did have a question for him. But the question was, ‘Can I take a picture?’ And he was like, shocked. He was like, ‘A picture of who? Oh with me.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, totally.’ And so I have a selfie on my phone.”
Crawford, a 2015 Murrow College grad, serves as the Athletic Communications Assistant Director, overseeing WSU women’s soccer and men’s basketball. He manages each of the programs’ social media accounts and coordinates the media and public interactions with the team.
The job is stressful by nature, with Crawford producing a detailed media release shortly after each game.
Behind Crawford is a dedicated team of professional creatives and student interns who capture the spirit of WSU through photos, videos and design.
With the Cougs winning more than they have since 2008, crowds reached over 8,000 people by the final week of the regular season, the pre-game hype video and the team’s social media accounts received more record views.
The cinematic recaps of significant games captured the spirit of the moment exceptionally well and got fans excited for the next game. Iconic moments like WSU’s road Apple Cup win and upsets of Arizona were cemented on Cougs’ social media timelines through a dramatic montage of game footage shot from various angles, complete with Matt Chazanow play-by-play calls.
WSU men’s basketball went viral at least twice in 2024. The first viral tweet was a picture of Sister Jean of Loyola Chicago holding her glasses and smirking. The tweet read “Hot Cougs in Bio” written in the font that bots on Twitter use to solicit explicit services.
The next viral moment occurred during the Cougs’ NCAA Tournament run in Omaha, Nebraska. In line with the Cougs’ multi-year Wheatfield Underdogs branding, the Cougs posted a graphic containing Andrej Jakimosvski and Isaac Jones, the CHI Health Center in Omaha and a wheatfield.
Passionate Nebraska residents took to Twitter to proclaim how corn is grown in Nebraska, not wheat. WSU MBB responded with a professional explanation of the Cougars’ Wheatfield Underdogs branding.
Another user asked why the arena was in a wheatfield.
The response was iconic.
“The same reason our student-athletes look 5 times taller than CHI Health Center, Chad. It’s an artistic graphic. They are not, in fact, 750 feet tall despite appearing larger in this graphic.
“We can put the freeway overpass back in if you’re looking for authenticity. #GoCougs,” WSU MBB posted on X.
The next day, the Cougs round of 32 graphic consisted of to-scale cutouts of Oscar Cluff and Isaiah Watts in front of a Google Earth screenshot of the CHI Health Center.
The perfect response.
“It makes me feel, like school pride genuinely, to know that like somebody who didn’t go here saw that and now the thing they remember about WSU is probably the little silly Twitter beef that they saw about something stupid, you know,” Hayden said. “It’s just a nice thing to have representing the team.”
Crawford is just one of a terrific team of Sports Information Directors, including Riley Baker who oversees women’s basketball, golf and rowing, Chris Paige who oversees volleyball and track, Bobby Alworth who oversees baseball and swimming and Bill Stevens, a Murrow College grad who oversees football and tennis.
With the Murrow College teaching a high level of professional excellence, it is only right that the WSU athletic department, with Murrow grads at the helm, uphold that tradition and keep Cougs informed and entertained.
