Katy Lonergan loves to write.
And she really loves sports.
Her career has afforded her both, allowing her to work extensively within two of the most hallowed venues in all of college athletics — Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas and Notre Dame Stadium.
And of course, when asked about it, she instead points to the college athletes she’s written about for more than a quarter century.
“They did all the hard work,” Lonergan said this week in a telephone interview. “I just help make sure people know about it.”
Lonergan is nearing her second anniversary as assistant athletics director for football communications at Notre Dame. Prior to that, she spent 13 years in a similar capacity for KU’s basketball and football programs.
And that came after eight years with the media relations department at Ole Miss, where Lonergan worked with such athletes as Eli Manning, Michael Oher (who became the subject of the book and subsequent movie “The Blind Side), WNBA standout Armintie Price and others.
Indeed, she’s found her dream job for a dream she didn’t know existed.
LONERGAN grew up around sports. Her father, Pat, coached football for several years at Iola High School, and Katy was a standout in volleyball, basketball and track and field.
But she figured she’d give those up once she graduated high school in 1993 and enrolled at the University of Kansas, with the hopes of pursuing a law degree.
In her freshman year, Lonergan changed plans when an opportunity to help with the men’s and women’s summer basketball camps confirmed it was sports, not political science, that rocked her boat.
By her sophomore year, she was the women’s basketball student manager.
By her senior year, Lonergan was working at KU’s sports information department. Think of it as a public relations firm for student athletes — a go-between for coaches and athletes and other news media.
After college, Longergan began an internship for the Horizon League, an athletics conference featuring several schools in the Great Lakes region, then for another semester for the NCAA’s home office when it was still in Kansas City.
“It was a great experience, and I made great connections,” Lonergan said. “But by then I knew I wanted to work on a campus.”
From there, Lonergan was tapped as an intern to work at the University of Mississippi — Ole Miss — in the heart of the SEC, where college football passions run deep.
Lonergan dabbled with writing stories about football players, but her primary responsibilities were to write about volleyball and track and field.
“I figured I’d be there for about 10 months, which is standard for interns,” she said.
That 10 months became eight years, after Lonergan’s higher-ups became so impressed with her work that they created a full-time position for her to remain at Ole Miss to write about football.
