2 minute read

Kaila Anderson

CONNOR MCGINNIS

Assistant Director of Strategic Comm. Arkansas, 2015

Connor McGinnis joined Tulane Athletics as assistant director of strategic communications in October 2021.

He serves as the primary media contact for the Green Wave’s women’s basketball and women’s tennis programs as well as the secondary media contact for football.

McGinnis arrived in New Orleans after one year at the University of Arkansas at Monticello where he served as the Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications. With the Boll Weevils, he handled the dayto-day communications initiatives for all 10 NCAA sports on campus. During his tenure, he served as the host communications director for the 2021 Great American Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship game.

Prior to his time at UAM, McGinnis interned with Vanderbilt Univesity athletics working in the communications department. While with the Commodores, he worked specifically with the baseball program during the 2019 and 2020 seasons. McGinnis also spent time as a communications inter with the Nashville Predators during the 2018-19 season.

McGinnis was a television news producer in his hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas at KFSM-TV for more than two years before attending graduate school and beginning his work in sports.

McGinnis earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas in 2011, before completing his master’s degree in sport administration at Belmont University in 2020. Gus Kattengell serves as the play-by-play broadcaster for Tulane’s women’s basketball games and is entering his seventh season calling the action on the hardwood in 2018-19. Kattengell is also entering his 10th season as part of Tulane football broadcasts serving as the pregame and postgame show host along with patrolling the sidelines as the sideline reporter.

Kattengell has been entrenched in New Orleans sports radio as a journalist reporting on the Saints, Pelicans and other professional and college sports. He has also served as the sideline reporter for the Saints Radio Network for two years and as sideline reporter and color commentator for the former Arena Football League’s Voodoo Radio Network for three years.

January 2010 saw Kattengell take to the airways as co-host of the Sports Hangover, a daily sports talk show. In 2009, he was hired as the Sports Director at WMTI 106.1 The Ticket, where The Sports Hangover aired weekdays from 3 to 6 p.m. In 2014, he joined ESPN New Orleans where he currently hosts the Sports Hangover weekdays from 12-3 p.m.

Kattengell was rewarded by the Press Club of New Orleans in Summer 2018 as Sports Hangover was selected the Best Sports Talk Show. Other awards include two Regional Murrow Awards presented by the RadioTelevision News Directors Association for Sports Feature and several Louisiana Associated Press awards for Best Sportscast and Sports Story in the state.

After graduating from Brother Martin High School in New Orleans, Kattengell took his passion for athletics to the University of Southern Mississippi, where he majored in Broadcast Journalism and minored in Coaching and Athletic Administration.