Taylor Flatt is the Assistant Sports Information Director for the University of Tampa. However, when you take a walk around the Martinez Sports Center and ask for Taylor, you will soon learn he is better known as “Rick Vaughn”.
Only 24 and recently graduated from UT, Taylor “Rick Vaughn” Flatt maintains a great relationship with current students. He explained how this nickname from his peers came about.
He had commented on the popular movie “Major League,” specifically how one character’s name, Rick Vaughn, was the perfect name to have if you played baseball. From then on, it stuck.
“I never wanted to be called Rick Vaughn… but they said I did,” Flatt said.
Flatt also had an interesting story on how he ended up attending UT. Originally from Tennessee, Taylor found the campus by accident.
“It was actually a stroke of fate. I didn’t know anything about the school. I was down here for a concert at Tampa Theatre, got lost trying to find parking, and managed to find my way onto the campus.”
Though Flatt always loved sports, rooting for the Rays while staying true to his hometown teams, he initially aspired to be a meteorologist. After realizing “the math, the weather was too hard,” Flatt shifted his attention towards Sport Management.
Because the field of Sport Management is vague, Flatt tried finding a career path he was interested in. That’s when he took Professor Gil Swalls’ Media relations and Communications in Sports class.
“Fortunately that next semester I had Gil’s class…I already kind of had an idea that I wanted to get into something like this [but] that was what really made me certain with what I wanted to do”.
Flatt described his position at UT as a pseudo internship/ full-time job. He has many responsibilities pertaining to UT athletics, but he says the “biggest two things we do is keep stats for all our athletic teams, update the website and get that information out.”
He also works to get our school media coverage, whether it be locally or on a broader scale. This may be a difficult task, Flatt explained, because of the school’s location.
“It was always tough trying to get media coverage of our teams especially in this market with all the professional teams, and then there is USF too.”
Nevertheless, Flatt works diligently to benefit UT’s athletics and the school in general. He, as well as his boss, Tom Kolbe (Sports Information Director), both rely on the help from hard-working students.
“We rely very heavily on students. That’s one of the reasons why we don’t really have a full-time assistant. Its more of a learning experience for them too.”
Flatt then explained the tasks the students perform for various teams.
“They travel with the teams…where as most schools, it’s the Sports Information Director or the assistant who goes with the teams…On the road, sometimes it’s really just being there as a connection between the team. With basketball, we’ll keep the book to make sure the scoring is right and everything… Soccer is the same.”
His friendly relationship with the “student assistants” is one quality that makes Flatt such a popular and likeable guy around the athletics department.
Swalls, Associate Athletic Director and former professor of Flatt’s, spoke kindly on his behalf.
“It takes a very unique set of skills for a student to come to work in this office and Taylor has all the skills.”
It was, in fact, Swalls who saw special talent in Taylor.
“Gil came to me and said ‘this is a natural, he’s great in this class, he’d be great in the field, we need to get him,’” Kolbe, Flatt’s superior said. “We basically begged [him] to come work for us. We finally talked to him into working here as a senior. He did it, he did a great job, actually liked it while doing it, and decided he wanted to do this as a career.”
As if the words spoken by Swalls and Kolbe weren’t gracious enough, Flatt was also complimented by one of his student assistants. Adrian Martinez, who has known Flatt for two years, commented “he’s not grumpy”.
Martinez perhaps was caught off guard by the proposition of commenting on Flatt, because as he was ending the phone conversation, Martinez admitted to Flatt “I like you… I do like you.” Flatt also has a great advice for current students in the field of Sport Management.
“There are so many opportunities to do so many different types of things in this area and the professors and the program are always putting them in front of you. Take advantage of all those different things. With internships- do different things.”
For instance, Flatt interned for the Clearwater Threshers in the 2008 summer.
From this experience, he realized he preferred to build a career around collegiate sports instead of professional sports.
Flatt even got specific, saying he liked Division II athletics because of “the focus on the student athlete”.
Next in his career, he hopes to move on as a Sports Information Director, particularly in a small southern town because of how much emphasis and fan support is geared towards collegiate sports.
As far as new students getting involved with what Flatt does, although aware some openings on campus might be miniscule, he is confident there is a job for most everyone.
“We try very hard to not turn anyone away. We will find something for people to do here.”
So look for Flatt in Martinez Sports Center, but just remember to call him by his appropriate name- Rick Vaughn.
Daniel Feingold can be reached at dfeingold@ut.edu.
As a former Sports Editor of the Minaret, and contract employee/volunteer in the athletic department here at UT I have seen the Sports Information Department flourish with amazing students that have blossomed under the tutelage of Tom Kolbe, Gil Swalls, and Athletic Director Larry Marfise.
I have worked along side Taylor Flatt and the dedication and knowledge that he has brought to this department is insurmountable. The beauty of Taylor Flatt, is he is not the only one to achieve great success within the department. Over the years, Tom Kolbe has helped to place his students throughout the country with other schools and organizations within the sports field to the point where he is sought after by these organizations to proivde them with his students.
In a predominantly male field, Kolbe has also found great success in a resource that for too long has been overlooked- the female Sports Information Director. Not only has Kolbe employed a plethora of female students over the years, but they too have also achieved great success. This past summer, current student sports information assistant Carli Todd received a scholarship from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), a scholarship that is handed out to only a handful of students annually.
Behind every championship sports program is championship sports information department