Starkville native Tony Schmidt has spent the last 15 years operating as an assistant sports information director at Jacksonville State University; a school he loved with sports he loved.

It was going to take a truly unique opportunity to pry him away from Jacksonville, Alabama. But when the 46-year-old Mississippi State University graduate learned that Starkville was creating an opening for a sports information director of its own, he said he had to jump on it. It was time to come home. 

“Just coming back here, it was a no-brainer,” said Schmidt, a 1997 Starkville graduate. “(It’s) an opportunity to come back home and still do what I’m doing, sports information.”

Aug. 1 was his first day as Starkville’s SID, a role typically unique to colleges and universities that handles social media output and press obligations for each sport. Schmidt said Starkville, a name brand in Mississippi’s MHSAA 7A ranks, already conducts its athletics operations on a scale similar to some colleges and junior colleges, and the school decided that having a position that focused on media and sports information would take some burdens off their coaches. 

“From the people I’ve talked to, they’re like, ‘Man, this is so needed,’” he said. “It sometimes takes a little bit of something off the plate of the coaches as well. They don’t have to worry about social media or whatnot; they can focus on what they’re hired to do.

“(I) talked to the (Starkville Oktibbeha School District) superintendent, Dr. (Tony) McGee and chit-chatted and really liked the vision he has for this district. He’s great. Athletic director Jay Hopson, it’s been good to work with him as well.”

Schmidt is now the main man in charge of sports information, like putting out athletics social media posts, running the school’s athletics website along with other duties.

“It’s (all about) promoting our kids,” he said. “Some of these kids, they’ll have a chance to go to the next level and that’s what we want to promote; give them that opportunity.” 

One of the first items on his long to-do list is curating graphics and other bits of media and information to run on the school’s new video board in Yellow Jacket Stadium as well as the use of the new interactive stadium lights – both of which are parts of the school’s recent $5,209,800 athletic renovations. Starkville will also be live streaming every football game this year with a four-camera setup, and Schmidt is spearheading the venture in hopes of a smooth debut.

“It’s going to be a full-on production,” he said, also adding that the school is looking into having live replay of the game displayed on the new video screen. “So (I’m) helping with that, getting information to the commentators, supplying some kind of game notes. Eventually, I kind of want to do stats, but I need to get my feet settled first.”

In the coming months, Yellow Jacket fans can also expect a new dedicated athletics website that is currently in early stages of development. The website will be complete with rosters, schedules and even photos of each player.

“I’ve got different designs and stuff. So, basically it’s just getting the design of it and then tweaking it and building each page,” he said.

The website will act as Starkville’s hub for sports where fans and parents can look for scores and updates of games as they happen. 

Even in high school, Schmidt was interested in sports information. As a senior he got the opportunity to get his foot in the door by running the scoreboard at Dudy Noble Field and later became a student media worker at Mississippi State while he earned a master’s degree in sports administration from MSU. When he graduated, he went over to the University of West Alabama and worked for three years as an assistant SID before heading to Jacksonville. At JSU, he worked with the football team, the men’s and women’s tennis teams, women’s soccer, the rifle team and baseball. He always made sure to come back home and visit though, even traveling to MSU in 2021 with the Gamecocks’ baseball team. 

“It’s changed,” he said. “Every time I come back I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. That wasn’t here a few years ago.’ A stop sign here, not a stop sign there and something is being built. So, it’s great to be back.”