Volleyball team beats Auburn, while athletics "comms staff" serves up blunders

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While the FAMU Lady Rattlers volleyball team had a perfect first day yesterday at the Auburn University Invitational Tournament knocking off the host team 3 sets to 2, and besting Belmont University 3 sets to zero.  

The FAMU Sports Information team didn't fare as well, serving up a big -- above the fold--blunder in their press release announcing the pair of victories on the FAMU athletics website.  The new "comms team" referred to the university's colors as "Green and Gold" instead of Green and Orange. 

Athletics Comms Team 

This is the second major blunder by the new athletic "comms" staff in the past week.   Just last week the team referred to Bragg Stadium as "Bragg Campbell Stadium" in a FAQ for game day info.  Then, there is the FAMU.com (instead of FAMU.edu) mistake on the back of the football trailer.

FAMU's new three person sports information department, which was rebranded  "Athletic Communications" this summer has a completely new staff that joined the university in late July of this year.  None of the new team appears to have a solid writing background.  Each of the new hires came to FAMU from the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) athletic department, where AD Kortne Gosha  worked for six years. The new team replaces former SID Brian Howard, a veteran sports info professional who came to FAMU in July 2019, after a two-year stint as SID at Grambling State University, and former Curtis Ford, III, former Associate SID.

Howard, hired by former AD John Eason, left the athletics staff shortly after the current AD was hired and was reassigned to University Communications Office where he served until returning back to Grambling this year as Associate AD for Communications.

MTSU to FAMU pipeline

The communications team aren't the only new hires in the FAMU athletic department with MTSU connections.  Women's basketball coach Shalon Pillow was an assistant with the MTSU Lady Blue Raiders before being tapped as the head Lady Rattlers hoops coach.  

Then there's Deputy AD/Chief of Staff Keith McCluney,  Associate AD for Administration and Operations Michael Johnson , Associate AD for Football Operations LaTroy Johnson, the new Athletic Equipment Manager, and Michael Caldwell, Director of Facilities & Operations all worked at MTSU at some point, according to their FAMU Athletics bios.