Rick Bender - Athletics Communications Contact - Men's Golf Support Staff

Rick Bender

Title:
Athletics Communications Contact
Alma Mater:
Davidson ’93
Email:
rick.bender@dartmouth.edu
Phone (603):
603-646-1030
At Dartmouth:
16th Year (2008-)

Rick Bender is in his 16th year heading up Dartmouth’s varsity athletics communications office, earning a promotion from director to Senior Associate Athletics Director prior to the 2022-23 season. He oversees the communications efforts for the Big Green’s 35 Division I varsity sports, including the DartmouthSports.com web site, video streaming and media relations. The 2023-24 season will be his 27th year working in media relations at the Division I level.

Bender was hired as an assistant sports information director in the fall of 1996 at Davidson College, and after three years was promoted to the director’s position from which he oversaw the communications efforts for the Wildcats’ 21 Division I varsity sports. During his eight years as the director, he served as the Co-Media Coordinator for the 1999 and 2000 Men’s College Cup, as well as the Media Coordinator for the 2005 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament First- and Second-Round games in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A 1993 graduate of Davidson College with a degree in mathematics, Bender was a three-time all-conference shortstop for the Wildcats’ baseball team. He spent four summers playing independent professional baseball in the Frontier and Texas-Louisiana Leagues for the Portsmouth (Ohio) Explorers, Beaumont (Texas) Bullfrogs and Alexandria (Louisiana) Aces. Bender aso served as an assistant coach at his alma mater during the school year for three seasons before moving into the media relations department.

A veteran official scorer at baseball games, Bender presided over the Southern Conference Baseball Tournaments in 2005, ’07 and ’08, and has worked as an official scorer at the AA and AAA minor league levels for the Birmingham Barons and the Charlotte Knights.

Bender is a member of the College Sports Communicators (CSC, formerly CoSIDA), Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA). In 2019, his story on Big Green football player Phil Berton, “The Curious Son of Sidd Finch,” won the District I award for story with a video in the CoSIDA Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest. The following year, Bender, along with two of his staff members, received the national award for the best Special Event Program, University Division, for the Dartmouth football game program at Yankee Stadium. In 2023, he received the 25-Year Award from the CSC for a quarter century in the profession.

Bender is married to the former Mitze Roton, and the couple reside in North Sutton, New Hampshire, with their son, Jake (a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire), dog Gus, and two cats, Uhtred and Rosa.