Kevin Lewis Trainor : Utility player
Posted on Sunday, October 5, 2008
SELF PORTRAIT Date and place of birth: Dec. 24, 1971; Kansas City, Mo. Family: wife Ruth and daughters Emma and Ellie My greatest weakness is Mexican food. Favorite junk food: ice cream If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that every day is unpredictable. I wish I knew more about automobiles. People who knew me in high school thought I was focused. Favorite television show: How I Met Your Mother All-time favorite movie: Hoosiers Ideal vacation spot: St. John My best asset is my sense of humor. My biggest weakness is Diet Coke. My favorite part of game day is the overall environment and excitement, the passion people have for the Razorbacks. My favorite Arkansas tradition: It’s hard to beat calling the Hogs. One word to sum me up: even-keeled FAYETTEVILLE — Kevin Trainor started his career in sports information in the fall of 1990 with little more than a pair of scissors.
“I showed up and started clipping newspapers,” Trainor says of his first day as a volunteer student assistant in the University of Arkansas sports information department. “The newspapers had stacked up over the summer and filled the table, so I just started clipping them.” In those days, a relative Stone Age technologically, newspaper and magazine articles about Razorbacks athletics were cut and compiled in giant binders that often sprouted stray newsprint like unpruned shrubbery. These days, any story can be readily located and printed with little more than a point and a click. Trainor has come a long way since 1990, too. The same fingers that cut up all those newspapers now keep the pulse of Razorbacks athletics.
But unlike most sports information directors of old — and many of his contemporaries — Trainor does more than just monitor the program’s vital signs. As Arkansas’ associate athletic director for media relations and communications, Trainor helps shape athletic department policy and guide its course. He’s the ultimate insider at a school whose fans closely monitor the coaches’ and teams ’ actions on and off the field.
Trainor was one of just three UA representatives who flew on a private jet to pluck Bobby Petrino from Atlanta and bring him to Fayetteville to try to redeem a football program teetering on the verge of madness, if not malady. Weeks before, head Coach Houston Nutt left Arkansas for Ole Miss, ending a tumultuous time with an assistant coach and some top recruits. “I might kinda have known what was going on,” says Rick Schaeffer, who left in 2000 after 24 years as sports information director, “but I sure wasn’t on any airplane.”
YOUNG SPORTS FAN Kevin Lewis Trainor was an early Christmas gift for his parents, John and Helen, in 1971 in Kansas City, Mo. He spent his first nine years in the Kansas City suburb of Blue Springs, Mo., and whether he was playing baseball, football, soccer or tennis, sports were always part of his life. Only the playing fields changed in Trainor’s daily routine when the family moved to tiny Fredonia, Kan.
“I was very fortunate to have a great upbringing in a two-parent home, and get the support I needed to be able, really, to pursue anything I wanted to,” Trainor says.
Like a lot of kids, Trainor dreamed of playing professional sports. His family traveled regularly to Kansas City Royals baseball games. The highlight of the trips for Trainor was seeing how many plastic stadium cups he could stack and maneuver out of the stadium without them toppling. “I was a die-hard Royals fan,” Trainor says with a laugh, “and many times we died hard.”
His older brother, Kendall, was a place-kicker at Arkansas, earning All-America honors in 1988. Kevin’s trips to Fayetteville to see Kendall play started him thinking about a degree from the UA and a career in sports information. “I finally figured out the major leagues didn’t need a crafty righthanded pitcher,” Kevin Trainor says. He worked alongside Schaeffer for four years, and after graduating in the spring of 1994, he landed a 10-month internship at Southeastern Conference headquarters in Birmingham, Ala. By the time the SEC gig was up, a new position within the UA sports information department had been created, and Trainor got it. Working as Arkansas’ assistant sports information director, Trainor handled the Razorbacks ’ baseball and tennis teams, assisted Schaeffer with his duties related to the football team and oversaw the department’s printing projects. A blind date with a professor’s daughter added a new but welcome dimension to his busy life.
TRAINOR IN TRAINING The former Ruth Whitehead was born and reared in Fayetteville, the youngest daughter and a triplet of Gen and Jim Whitehead, a well-known writer and beloved professor who helped establish Arkansas’ creative writing department. Ruth had graduated from the University of Kansas, earned a master’s degree at Ohio State and was teaching Spanish at Springdale High School when a mutual acquaintance arranged for her to go out with Trainor in 1996.
It’s unclear how much Trainor knew about her background at the time of their first date, but he nonetheless felt a need to take what he believed was a “sophisticated” approach.
“I asked her if she wanted to go get some coffee even though I don’t drink coffee,” Trainor says.
When Ruth suggested chips and dip at a local Mexican food restaurant, it proved to be serendipitous.
“I don’t think I’ve ever turned down Mexican food,” Trainor says with a laugh.
Ruth says she was probably more anxious about the first date, due partly to the fact she was coming off a couple of bad breakups. The two connected almost immediately.
“He was just always so reassuring and so sweet,” she says now.
By the spring of 1997, the relationship grew more serious, despite the fact Trainor was immersed in the busy baseball season.
“Monday night was date night,” Trainor says. “It involved her coming over to my duplex, and we’d rent a movie and I’d do my laundry, because that was the one night a week we could guarantee we could get together.”
The two were married in a ceremony at Old Main in the summer of 1998, shortly before Trainor was promoted to associate sports information director and given the major responsibility of working with Arkansas’ men’s basketball team. Two years later, when Schaeffer left to pursue other endeavors, Trainor advanced to what is essentially his current position. Overseeing the media relations department at his alma mater — a program he’d grown up rooting for — was a dream come true. “I’ve been incredibly blessed to be able to pursue a career that I wanted to at a place that I wanted to,” he says. “It’s very unusual for someone in my position to have been able to advance without leaving.”
CAPPING A NEW COACH With the title and position comes a tremendous amount of responsibility, and often an equal amount of pressure. Coaching searches are one example.
Trainor and others involved with the ill-fated hiring of basketball coach Dana Altman can look back and muster a chuckle or two now at the way the situation unfolded in April 2007. Arkansas — at least according to public perception — had already been spurned by more than one candidate when Altman did an about-face just 24 hours after being announced as the hoops Hogs’ new leader.
During a news conference at Bud Walton Arena, then-athletic director Frank Broyles handed Altman an Arkansas baseball cap as part of his welcoming speech. Altman glanced at the hat, then tossed it aside like a dirty diaper, angering the Arkansas faithful from border to border and beyond.
When Arkansas eventually hired John Pelphrey, Trainor was charged with making sure Pelphrey understood the importance of putting on the cap.
“Kevin said, ‘As soon as you get up there, you’ll shake hands with Coach Broyles, put on the hat and we’ll call the Hogs, ’” Pelphrey says. “Three minutes later, he came over and said the exact same thing. I thought, ‘ What is this guy’s deal ?’ because I was paying attention the first time.
“ About five minutes later, he came over and told me again. I said, ‘Kevin, this is the third time you’ve told me.’ He looked at me and said, ‘I know.’ “ When I got up to the podium, Coach Broyles was excited. He shook my hand and then started calling the Hogs. I picked up the hat and put it on, and looked off to the side at Kevin. There’s a picture of me laughing and that’s when I was looking at him.” The reason for the laughter was obvious. “It was the loudest cheer of that press conference,” Trainor says, smiling at the memory.
FLY ON THE WALL Trainor’s day-to-day duties rarely land him in the kind of spotlight he experienced when Pelphrey shot him that glance at Walton Arena. That’s not to say Trainor’s responsibilities are trivial.
As the face of the athletic department to the media and public — and often the face of the media and public to the department — it’s not uncommon for Trainor to be put in the middle, though his allegiance and obligation clearly lies with the university.
“There are some times when you feel like you’re in the minority opinion in the room the majority of the time,” Trainor says. “But that’s what this job is, that’s what this department is charged with, and we try to navigate that the best we can.”
Friends and colleagues say Trainor maintains a cool head, considers the details and thinks through awkward situations.
UA counsel Scott Varady says Trainor “is always grounded by what is in the best interest of the athletic department, the University of Arkansas and the fans of the program in every corner of the state.”
Broyles, the former athletic director, says Trainor’s ability to analyze conflicting viewpoints and work rationally toward a solution made him invaluable in high-level matters.
“He was always in on any difficult decision I had to make,” Broyles says.
Trainor acknowledges the stress of his job, but doesn’t dwell on it.
“I gave up on trying to tell people it isn’t as great as it’s cracked up to be a long time ago,” Trainor says.
His joy comes in attending championship, bowl and tournament games and sharing in recruiting victories. However, he’s garnered just as much satisfaction from the relationships formed with the coaches and student-athletes who’ve passed through the university. Being in the loop motivates him, but it doesn’t consume him.
“Sometimes you can get so caught up in what you’re doing and what’s next that you look up and realize you’re in the room with 35 Heisman Trophy winners,” Trainor says. “You literally have to take time to look up and say, ‘Wow, this is incredible. I never thought I’d be here.’
“ Just to watch people react to a Coach Petrino or a Darren McFadden or Coach Broyles, Nolan Richardson — that’s an interesting perspective to have, to basically be a fly on the wall. I have a lot of great memories from working with a lot of great people who have been very good to me.”
THE ANSWER MAN Trainor keeps long hours and is often on-call when an issue or crisis develops. His schedule leaves little time for leisure and can cut into the amount of time he spends with his family. He takes his daughters, Emma, 7, and Ellie, 4, to school every morning to sneak in more time with them. Trainor also has regular lunch dates with his wife. Family outings include miniature golf or bowling. “I do like to play golf when I can and I participate in church activities,” Trainor says, “but if I have free time I want to spend it with my family, with my girls. I just try to tap into whatever it is they want to do.” “ We don’t always have a lot of quantity as far as time goes, but he’s real good about quality, ” Ruth Trainor adds.
To some, Kevin Trainor’s professional life is an enviable one, particularly when you’re jetting through the night to pick up a Petrino.
“You do have some adrenaline running through you, sort of like the athletes on the field,” Trainor says. “That was just an exciting time. We were very excited that Coach Petrino was going to be our next head coach and knew that the Arkansas fan base would be excited.”
He was also present during John Pelphrey’s interview at the request of Broyles and then-Chancellor John White.
“In my mind, I’m wondering why he’s there,” Pelphrey says of Trainor. “We start talking and Coach Broyles asked Kevin a question. Kevin ruffled through a stack of papers and found the answer. Then Chancellor White asked him a question. Kevin dug through the papers and found that answer.
“ After the interview, Kevin walked me out of the building. I asked him ‘What do you do ? You’re not just the SID.’
“ He said ‘I’m the SID, but I do a lot of other things.’ Watching him search for those words was priceless.”
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