Michael Eldridge

Position: Assistant Athletic Communications Director Alma Mater: UT Arlington, 2011

Michael Eldridge was named the Assistant Athletic Communications Director in October of 2014 and holds primary responsibilities to women's basketball, softball and tennis, while serving as a secondary contact for all other of UTA's 15 Division I sports. 

Eldridge has taken a lead role in UTA Athletics' social media campaigns as well as help continue a focus on visual communication in the department. Eldridge oversees the department's graphical needs across all platforms and works closely with the department's graphic designer.

A focus for Eldridge has been on improving the program's historical record keeping across the 15 Division I teams in design and implementation of record books and media guides. He has overseen the improvement of UTA's statistical record keeping between StatCrew programs as well as overall note taking between the programs. 

Helping UTA reach the greatest number of viewers in the community, Eldridge has helped grow the social media efforts by more than 75% across all platforms throughout various campaigns. During his time as a graduate assistant, he improved the reach of the program with a Thesis focused on Social Media Engagement using visual communication. 

Beyond the University, Eldridge is entrenched in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with various freelancing responsibilities that have included the Texas Rangers, TCU Football and Basketball, SMU Football and various sports within the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Eldridge's experience includes holding a position as a communications assistant with the NCAA Final Four and Regionals held at AT&T Stadium. As a communications assistant, Eldridge worked closely with the visiting SID's to accomadate schedules, interview requests as well as gameday note creation for pre and post games for local and visiting media. He also worked with The SportsXchange as a beat writer covering the Texas Rangers, TCU and SMU. 

With the Mavericks not sponsoring a football program, Eldridge has gained experience with the sport as a communications assistant for the Fort Worth Armed Forces Bowl and Heart of Dallas Bowl. Duties include social media director as well as record book and bowl notes editor and designer.

Eldridge has been a freelance writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram since 2011 covering local sports. Eldridge held beats that included Tarleton Athletics, Texas Wesleyan and UTA. Since joining the UTA staff, he has been a statistician and writer for high school football in the area. 

Prior to joining the UTA Athletic Department, Michael worked in UTA's Social Work department as an Admin Assistant II and served as a hiring coordinator for Best Buy in its Forth Worth region.

He graduated with a B.A. in Communication in 2011 and M.A in Communication in 2016 from UT Arlington and lives in Fort Worth with his wife Jessica.