By Ryan Touhey
The Sacred Heart University Athletic Department hired David Salomon as the Supervisor of Varsity Athletic Facilities Operations. The announcement was made on Monday, March 6.
Salomon’s position involves daily operations to ensure the preservation of Sacred Heart’s athletic facilities. Such actions include setting up for different sporting events and eliminating all potential hazards that may occur in any of the facilities.
“My expectations are to make sure that our facilities are looked at as the top facilities,” said Salomon. “Our goal is to try to give our fans and our guests a VIP experience every time they come to an event here at Sacred Heart.”
One of Salomon’s coworkers is Alex Barton who is a Graduate Assistant for Athletic Facilities. Barton has been working at Sacred Heart for a year and a half.
“We’ve been doing a lot of projects, cleaning up a lot of things, keeping ourselves organized and staying on top of our schedules,” said Barton. “It’s been good so far.”
In his first two weeks on the job, Salomon worked the Northeast Conference Women’s Basketball Semifinal
game against Bryant University. That event was held on Wednesday, March 8 at the Pitt Center.
On Saturday, March 18 he worked at Campus Field for the men’s lacrosse game against Robert Morris University and the women’s lacrosse game against University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
“We threw a lot at him and he’s hit the ground running,” said Chris O’Connor, Sacred Heart Senior Associate Director of Athletics. “It’s been an adventurous two weeks and the snow and cold added a wrinkle to it.”
Sacred Heart is not Salomon’s first college where he has worked in supervising athletic facilities.
Salomon was hired as the Athletic Facilities and Event Coordinator at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. That came five years after he had graduated from St. John’s University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science degree in sports
management.
At Hofstra, Salomon looked after the university’s athletic facilities and worked day-to-day operations for their sporting events.
He also continued his education there and earned his master’s degree in public relations last year.
It was through a former colleague of his at Hofstra that Salomon became aware of the opportunity at Sacred Heart. The colleague’s was Frantzer LeBlanc, who currently works as the Assistant Athletic Director for Facilities at the University of Delaware.
LeBlanc is friends with Christopher Velez, who is Sacred Heart’s Head Equipment Manager. Velez reached out to LeBlanc and told him that Sacred Heart was looking for somebody to hire as Supervisor of Athletic Facilities. LeBlanc recommended Salomon and Salomon applied for an interview.
“There’s a good way about him with his ability to work across a variety of constituencies,” said O’Connor.
Salomon’s ability to network was what got him the job. Networking was the most valuable thing he learned in college.
“You want to make a name for yourself so that when an opportunity presents itself, you’re the first person that someone thinks of,” said Salomon.
