After being canceled last fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual Charley Steiner Symposium will return Thursday, March 3, postponed from its usual early November date.
The symposium, which features multiple panels with professionals in sports media and academics, had been hosted by the Steiner School of Sports Communication each fall since 2015 until last year’s cancelation.
According to Paul Gullifor, Henry Means Pindell Endowed Chair and professor of sports communication, the postponement has to do with the difficulty and concern of hosting a large, in-person gathering amidst the uncertainty that COVID-19 presents. Steiner, the current radio voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a 1971 Bradley graduate, has especially been cautious of the situation.
“We had to make a decision in the summer, because it takes a good three or four months to plan this,” Gullifor said. “During the summer, COVID was looking pretty bad … Charley basically beat us to the punch and said, ‘I don’t think this can happen in November.’”
Gullifor, associate chair and associate professor of sports communication Josh Dickhaus and Steiner all take part in planning the event and scheduling guests for each panel. Panelists from previous symposiums include television host Larry King, San Francisco Giants Hall of Fame broadcaster Jon Miller and famed sports talk radio host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo.
Last year’s schedule was set to include ESPN anchor Bob Ley and “Good Morning America” host Robin Roberts as the keynote prior to the cancelation.
“We lost a great opportunity for our students,” Gullifor said. “We lost momentum. Because, we had done this four or five years in a row now and it was getting pretty well established, where we were predictable — people knew, people were circling the dates on their calendar.”
This year, the school will be tasked with regaining that momentum while establishing a new time of year for the event.
Pandemic aside, planning the symposium each year is an undertaking. According to Gullifor, the process centers around coming up with topic ideas for panels and determining what knowledge would be most beneficial for students.
“What is hot? What do students need to know? What have we not done in past symposiums?” Gullifor said. “One of them that I’m 99% certain we’re going to do [this year] is something on the state of intercollegiate athletics … because there have been some seismic shifts in college sports.”
Once topics are determined, Gullifor and others devise lists of four people they’d like on the panel, often with Steiner recruiting some of his friends from the industry to come to Peoria — especially for the keynote speaker.
2022’s symposium will bring a different dynamic being held in March, as various professional sports are in and out of season than in November.
“It’s the offseason for football in March; we might be able to get some people from the NFL in March,” Gullifor said.
According to Gullifor, it is unclear as to whether the event will permanently shift to March or return to November following next semester.
For now, Gullifor is focused on the task at hand: restarting the symposium with a bang.
“The big thing was [that] it sat for a year and a half, idle,” Gullifor said. “I hope people remember when we launch it again — ‘Oh, yeah, the Steiner Symposium, good, they’re starting that up again — good.’ That’s the hope.”
