Aug. 18, 2006
ORLANDO - UCF Director of Athletics Keith R. Tribble has announced the hiring of Joe Hornstein as the Golden Knights' Assistant Athletics Director for Communications and Ryan Powell as Associate Director for Athletics Communications.
Additionally, the Golden Knights Club, the fundraising arm of the athletics association, has brought in longtime UCF employee John Marini to form a lettermen's association. Marini will also be responsible for heading up the selection process for the UCF Athletics Hall of Fame.
"We're excited to be bringing Joe [Hornstein] to UCF," said Tribble. "I personally witnessed as he developed into one of the most respected media relations directors in the bowl business. For UCF, he brings in a new vision for our athletics communications department along with a national media presence that should prove invaluable as we continue to build a program with national prominence."
For the previous four years, Hornstein, 34, has overseen the historic Miami-based Orange Bowl Committee's external communications efforts, most recently as Vice President of Communications. In addition to operating the Orange Bowl's media relations and operation for the prestigious FedEx Orange Bowl game and Festival week, he also served on the media policy and public relations committees for the Bowl Championship Series and Football Bowl Association.
During his tenure at the OBC, he hosted four FedEx Orange Bowl games, including the 2005 National Championship between Southern California and Oklahoma, which would feature three Heisman Trophy winners in Matt Leinart (`04) and Reggie Bush (`05) of USC and Jason White (`03) of OU. Additionally, the game set an organizational championship record with over 1,200 media credentials issued. The program publication for that game, produced in-house, is known to be the largest program for a collegiate event (316 pages). Elements of that game's media operation have been adopted by the BCS and implemented at all BCS bowl games.
His final Orange Bowl game saw college football's two largest living legends face off for perhaps the last time as Penn State's Joe Paterno battled with Florida State's Bobby Bowden to a BCS record triple overtime conclusion in 2006. The 2006 FedEx Orange Bowl saw a non-championship game record of 759 media credentialed, surpassing the previous record of 692 credentials for the 2004 game.
Prior to the OBC, Hornstein served for five seasons as an Assistant Sports Information Director at the University of Miami, working with the Hurricanes baseball and football programs. As the baseball media contact, Hornstein had the opportunity to work two College World Series championship seasons in 1999 and 2001. His 2000 baseball yearbook, which covered UM's 1999 National Championship, was selected as "Best in the Nation" and "Best Cover" by CoSida. As UM's No. 2 football SID, he worked several bowl games including the program's highly publicized 2001 National Championship season and subsequent Rose Bowl victory over Nebraska.
He came to UM in 1998 after spending three seasons as the graduate assistant for the Florida State University Sports Information Office, working with the football program as well as several other Seminole programs. He was a student assistant in the University of South Florida Sports Information Office from 1991-95 and graduated with a bachelor's of science in public relations.
Powell, 29, joins the UCF athletics communications staff from the Conference USA office in Irving, Texas where he spent two years as an assistant director of media relations before his recent promotion to associate director in early July. At the league office, Powell served as the co-football contact as well as the primary contact for cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field and softball. He coordinated all media operations at the inaugural C-USA Football Championship game held last year at the Florida Citrus Bowl.
"When the football SID position opened up, we immediately targeted Ryan [Powell] to the fill that vacancy," added Tribble. "He brings with him experience dealing with the national media that follow Conference USA and that should further solidify our athletics communications office as one of the top offices in the conference."
He also handled media relations duties on an interim basis during the 2005-06 men's basketball season and he coordinated media operations at several of C-USA's year-end championship events: the 2004 and 2005 women's soccer championships, the 2005 women's golf championship, the 2006 men's golf championship and the 2006 men's tennis championship.
Prior to his stint at the league office, Powell served as a graduate assistant in the University of Memphis athletic media relations office. He earned a master's degree in sport and leisure commerce at the institution in the summer of 2004. His responsibilities at Memphis included serving as the primary contact for the women's soccer and baseball teams, while also assisting in gameday operations for football and men's and women's basketball. Powell began working in the athletic media relations field as an undergraduate at Auburn University where he completed a degree in corporate journalism in 2000.