Dave Vatz, assistant athletic director for athletic media relations, joined the Towson University athletics department in August 2018, overseeing all 19 teams and serving as the primary contact for football, gymnastics and men's lacrosse. He has previously been the contact for men's basketball, women's soccer, baseball and softball. Hired as the director of media relations, he was promoted to assistant athletic director in February 2023.
Along with his duties with athletics, Vatz is also a member of the Towson University Digital Accessibility Subcommittee plus served as the Towson media coordinator during the 2021 NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship Weekend and the 2024 NCAA Men's Lacrosse Quarterfinal Round.
Previous to Towson, Vatz spent five years at the University at Albany as an assistant director of media relations, including working as the interim director from Oct. 2016-July 2017, being the primary contact for men's basketball, men's lacrosse, volleyball and women's soccer, also previously working with football, women's basketball, field hockey and women's lacrosse. His teams appeared in the New York Times (front page, March 10, 2014), ABC World News, CBS Evening News, Newsday, New York Post, Associated Press, NPR and other various outlets nationally and locally.
He has been in media relations since 2010, serving as the assistant director of media relations & broadcasting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore from 2010-13 and the media relations/broadcasting assistant for the Hagerstown Suns, a full-season minor league baseball affiliate of the Washington Nationals, during the 2010 season. He has also served as a freelance writer for Inside Lacrosse magazine since 2007.
In other work, he was on the stats team for Athletes Unlimited professional women's lacrosse from 2022-24. He was the official scorekeeper for the Tri-City ValleyCats, the Houston Astros short-season single-A minor league baseball team based in Troy, New York, for three seasons from 2016-18 and formerly was an official scorekeeper and scoreboard operator for the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Baltimore Orioles single-A minor league baseball team in Salisbury, Maryland, from 2011-13. He was an official scorer for the 2017 New York-Penn League All-Star Game and the 2011 South Atlantic League All-Star Game.
Vatz has won four CSC (College Sports Communicators) yearly awards, including three in writing and one in graphic design. He is a three-time regional winner of the CSC Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest for "Season Preview/Recap of the Year" at UAlbany in 2015 and 2016 in District 1 (New York and New England) and UMES in 2013 in District 2 (Mid-Atlantic). His 2015 UAlbany women's soccer media guide earned first place nationally in the CoSIDA Publication Design Contest in the Soccer Guide - University Women category.
Vatz graduated from the University of Maryland in 2009 as a double major in journalism and history.
