MACON – Mercer University Director of Athletics Jim Cole has announced the appointment of Rick Cameron as senior associate athletic director for communications, effective June 1.
The longtime senior assistant vice president for marketing communications at Mercer will, in his new role, oversee athletic media relations, including management of mercerbears.com, the official website of Mercer Athletics, while continuing his broadcasting responsibilities as Voice of the Bears. Over the past 18 years Cameron has broadcast some of Mercer’s most historic athletics moments, including the University’s return to the football gridiron in 2013 and the men’s basketball team’s historic upset of Duke in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.
“I am very pleased that Rick has agreed to assume this important leadership function within the Athletic Department,” Cole said. “He has provided more than 25 years of dedicated service in the University’s Marketing Communications Office and will bring experience, skills and knowledge that will greatly benefit athletic media relations and our 18 sports.”
A 2019 inductee into the Mercer Athletic Hall of Fame, Cameron has served as Voice of the Bears since 2004 and has been an administrator at Mercer since 1997. In addition to overseeing media relations for the University, he has served as editor of The Mercerian and provided marketing communications support to the Mercer School of Medicine, among other marketing communications responsibilities.
Prior to coming to Mercer, Cameron spent more than 20 years serving as an editor and publisher of community newspapers in Georgia and Alabama.
“From the first day I stepped onto the Mercer campus in 1997, I have been honored and blessed to help promote what is undoubtedly one of the finest institutions in the country. And, for those people who know me personally, the day that I could return to my first love of sports broadcasting and become the ‘Voice of the Bears’ was a dream come true. I have thoroughly treasured my time with the professional and talented staff in Marketing Communications, who I consider dear friends as well as colleagues, but I am thrilled to work full time with Jim Cole and the amazing administrators, coaches, staff members and student-athletes in Mercer Athletics.”
A native of LaFayette, Georgia, Cameron is a 1977 graduate of the University of Georgia. His wife, Myra, has also been employed at Mercer for the past 25 years, and will retire next month.
