WILMINGTON, Ohio – The Wilmington College athletic department announced today that Michael Pagano has been named their new Director of Athletic Communications. "We are excited to have Michael join the Wilmington College family as our new Director of Athletic Communications" said Senior Director of Athletics Bill Wilson. "He brings with him experience and skills that will elevate our ability to tell the stories of our student-athletes, coaches, and programs. He will be a great addition to our athletics leadership team."
Pagano comes to Wilmington from Thomas More University in Crestview Hills, Kentucky where he served as the Co-Director of Sports Information from July 2022 to September 2023. While at Thomas More, Pagano oversaw the live streaming of Thomas More home athletic events, set up live stat capabilities, and researched the history of Thomas More athletics, among other duties. He created record books for the women's lacrosse and men's volleyball programs while creating year-by-year results pages for the men's and women's basketball teams, along with several other programs. He updated the Saints Hall of Fame page, which included writing bios and finding pictures of each athlete. He created an All-American, All-Region, and All-Conference document for the athletics website. During the summer of 2023, he wrote three articles that appeared in the Northern Kentucky Tribune, while providing statistics for several other articles written by Thomas More professor Ray Hebert.
Pagano spent the 2021-22 academic year at the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, Kentucky as the Assistant Director of Athletic Communications. He helped grow the Bears social media audience and designed and created several record books for UPIKE, including men's basketball and women's volleyball. He helped host the UPIKE football coaches show at a local Buffalo Wild Wings and broadcasted several sports, including men's and women's soccer, baseball, and softball.
He began his athletic communications career as a graduate assistant at Messiah University in Grantham, Pennsylvania. He learned what it took to be a quality director of athletic communications, including how to properly write, update the website, live stat games, create graphics, post to social media, take photos, etc. He broadcasted play-by-play for the Falcons field hockey, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's basketball, and swimming programs.
After his first year at Messiah, he was an intern content creator for New Ohio Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion based in central Ohio. With no shows held due to the pandemic, Pagano created a social media buzz for the company. He posted on their Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube channels. Posts included pictures from past shows, highlight videos of past shows, match graphics, and more. He created the NOW Nation Recap, teaming up with their play-by-play announcer to recap past matches. He posted the episodes live to Facebook on Friday nights.
"I'm very excited to get the chance to be the Director of Athletic Communications at Wilmington College," said Pagano. "After being a student-athlete in the Ohio Athletic Conference, it was always exciting to think about the possibility of working somewhere in the conference, and now that opportunity has arrived, and I couldn't be happier to be a Quaker. I want to thank Senior Director of Athletics Bill Wilson, Associate Athletic Director Briana Clark, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications Alex Trevino, and the rest of the folks involved in the interview process for believing in me and giving me this great opportunity."
