BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — The United States Naval Academy’s Chris Whitehead garners recognition from the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) office as the 2020-21 Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC)-East Region Sports Information Director of the Year.
Selected by the CWPA Director of Communications, the SID of the Year award is presented to individuals who “have achieved notable excellence in the field of water polo communications during the past academic year.”
Whitehead joined the Navy staff in March of 2017, where he serves as an Assistant Sports Information Director. He is the primary media contact for sprint football, water polo, women’s lacrosse, men’s track & field and women’s track & field.
Prior to Navy, Whitehead spent nearly three years at the University of Southern Mississippi as an assistant director of media relations. In addition, he worked at the University of North Florida (2009-13), where he was promoted to publications coordinator in 2011.
Whitehead served as a graduate assistant at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette from 2005 to 2009 after interning with the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) from 2003-to-2005. He worked for a year as an intern for the Greensboro Bats Minor League Baseball Team (2003) in Greensboro, N.C. and operated as a student assistant in the sports information department for four years while at Georgia Tech (1999-02).
A two-time MAWPC SID of the Year selection following previous honors during the 2018-19 academic year, Whitehead received his undergraduate degree in management in 2002 from Georgia Tech and attended graduate school at Louisiana-Lafayette majoring in public relations.
The award marks the fifth honor bestowed exclusively to MAWPC institutions following the division of the CWPA men’s teams into the MAWPC and Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) during the Summer of 2016.
He is the second Navy athletics communications professional recognized with an SID of the Year plaque as Chris Forman earned recognition as the 2008 and 2012 CWPA Southern Division SID of the Year.
