Being an athlete at El Camino College is not an easy job. They must learn to manage time between school, sports and whatever else may be in their life.
Thanks to Rafael Guerrero, EC’s full-time sports information specialist, the Warriors have well kept and updated stats, along with player information and sports news.
“I’m basically in charge of keeping stats for the majority of our sports,” Guerrero said. “I also maintain the athletics website with headshots, roster information, writing news releases and getting media coverage with the Daily Breeze and local media, on top of other things.”
Guerrero is also responsible for all media inquiries regarding the athletics program at EC, along with online statistics and content for eccwarriors.com.
After graduating from CSU Dominguez Hills with a degree in mass communications, Guerrero utilized his writing ability by working as a newsroom reporter at the Orange County Register.
“The OC Register helped me a lot, it’s real-world experience,” Guerrero said. “With the Register, it was with the sports I really wanted to cover, which gave me a great deal of hands-on experience.”
Prior to working at EC, Guerrero also worked as the assistant sports media director for CSU Northridge which is a division one school.
Despite EC being a highly-populated school, there are some aspects that are “not as accessible” compared to being at a large university, which Guerrero said was “difficult at first.”
“Here, you don’t always have the same amenities you would have [at a larger school],” Guerrero said. “Sometimes you don’t have a press box, so you really have to learn to use what you have.”
Despite not being a large four-year university, EC does have an athletics website similar to ones owned and used by universities around the nation.
“Our sports website is so easy to use,”Jason Gordon, 21, kinesiology major said. “If I ever want to see a friend’s stats or check game scores, the website has what I need on time.”
The athletics website is not solely ran by Guerrero, even though he is a large part of it.
“It is my main responsibility but I do have help, obviously,” Guerrero said. “The athletic department helps out a lot with the videos and livestreams that connect with the website for the games and put in a lot of work to do so.”
With game statistics and the website on your hands it might be difficult to change up the agenda from time to time and talk about new things, but that is exactly what Guerrero had to do when some athletes at EC controversially knelt during the playing of the national anthem during the fall of 2017.
“That particular situation was interesting because it happened on so many levels around the nation,” Guerrero said. “You talk to the team and coaches and figure out a strategy to get their thoughts out on why they were doing it and what they believe it will accomplish.”
Guerrero’s proactivity has not only been appreciated by students, faculty and staff, but respected by his peers and the people that work with him every day.
“He’s a big part of our athletic department,” Athletic Specialist Jeff Miera said. “He does a really good job with our social media accounts and keeping our fans engaged. It’s definitely good to have him onboard.”
UPDATE: The headline was updated for grammatical errors.
