Greg Steiner is an Associate Athletic Director at Eastern Michigan University’s Athletic Department, and he is in charge of the Media Relations Department as he works to help students improve in their field of media relations.
Steiner is in charge of the media relations for the EMU football team, women’s basketball team and both men’s and women’s golf teams. Steiner has been working for the media relations office for 15 years as he has contributed as an assistant athletic director and the media office’s assistant director.
Greg Steiner is also an Eastern Michigan alumnus as he came to Ypsilanti looking to go into a different field.
“I came to school here thinking I wanted to go into computer information systems. It lasted about a semester and a half before I realized that I didn’t want to just sit there and program,” said Steiner. “I played sports growing up. I played baseball, I have always been a guy who has watched a lot of TV and all that and I wanted to be around games.”
Steiner was able to get involved with the athletic department as a student. From there, he learned what he wanted to do for a living.
“I walked in here (athletics) one day, and I knew they were always looking for students. They welcomed me with open arms and they started me slow by having me cut out newspaper articles before they put me on cross country which I covered my sophomore year and junior year,” said Steiner.
With Steiner’s position, he is responsible for all sorts of different things when it comes to operation of the athletic department.
“I do everything from website, to game notes to simply coordinating schedules. A vast majority of my time is doing some research and getting the game notes ready,” said Steiner. “I’m in meetings a lot due to being on the executive staff. I go through that group to pressing issues of the department but I still oversee four sports.”
Steiner also has to deal with some jobs that normal media directors do not have to deal with. This is due to his position as an associate athletic director as well as the drive to be more involved with operations.
“I oversee the game and video board activities. So I have to make sure our broadcasters are scheduled, what station we are on this week and even host on some coaches shows that we have,” said Steiner.
When it comes to the media department, Steiner’s favorite part is seeing the progression and helping students get better and learn how the business works.
“My favorite part is being able to interact with the students whether it be the student athletes or the students in our offices. You get to see a lot of them come in as freshman and when they leave they are a completely different person then when they got here,” said Steiner. “Seeing that growth and continuing that growth after graduation are great. Since I’ve been here we have seen a lot of graduate assistants turn out to work at major institutions.”