Bill Stetka Recap

On Tuesday, March 8, the University of Maryland Sports Business Society welcomed Bill Stetka to the College Park Campus for a conversation with UMD students about his role as Director of Alumni for the Baltimore Orioles.

A Towson grad, Stetka first started out wanting to be a sports journalist. He worked as a reporter for the Afternoon Daily and then the News American. He then returned to Towson to be a member of their public relations staff. Stetka took a brief hiatus from PR when he first joined the Orioles organization, working as the team’s official scorer.

When Stetka led the Oriole’s PR department he frequently found himself working closely with players and coaches. He also was responsible for games notes, statistics, the media guide and many other special events. As PR Director, he played an integral role in planning the media coverage and celebrations for Cal Ripken’s record-setting game streak as well as his retirement. Remember the iconic numbers that counted down Ripken’s streak? Yep, that was him.

After a number of years working non-stop on the PR staff, Stetka decided to take a (somewhat) less demanding role and head up the Orioles Alumni department. When Stetka first stepped into this role, there were just five or six alumni involved. Now, eight years later, more than 60 players take part in alumni events each year. Some of the major events that Stetka has help to coordinate was planning reunions for the World Series teams (there have been three: 1966, 1970 and 1983) and the celebrations surrounding the team’s 60th anniversary. Stetka says that a large part of his role is also working as the team historian – as part of the 60th anniversary celebration, he put together a 400+ page book on the history of the club.

For those wanting to break into the sports industry, Stetka says to focus on one area and work to improve the specific skills used in that area. Additionally, Stetka says that sports PR is more similar to political PR than corporate PR. He also says that PR has completely changed due to technology.

Stetka says that he’s chosen to stay in baseball for this long because of the “romance of the sport.”

“You can always learn something new from baseball. There’s always going to be something that happens in the next week or two that you’ve never seen before.”

For more on Stetka, check out the Baltimore Sun’s profile on him.