SUNO's Wright wins league's Sports Information Director of the Year

Dani Wright named Historically Black Colleges and Universities Athletic Conference Sports Information Director of the Year

SUNO Athletics Communications Director Honored for Transforming Student-Athlete Visibility and Building a Platform That Extends Opportunity Beyond the Playing Field

NEW ORLEANS, La. — Southern University at New Orleans Athletics is proud to announce that Danielle "Dani" Wright has been named the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Athletic Conference (HBCUAC) Sports Information Director of the Year. The recognition honors work that goes well beyond communications — it honors a commitment to the belief that every student-athlete who puts on a Knights uniform deserves to be seen. The announcement was made Tuesday during the HBCUAC Summer Meeting, the league's year-end business meeting.

"I am honored to be named SID of the Year for our conference. While my name is on it, this is absolutely a team award. It is made possible first by our Director of Athletics James Matthews, who brought me on to help build up SUNO's athletics communications. Matthews' trust in me has helped us develop something really special for SUNO Athletics. I'm so grateful to him for this opportunity."

— Dani Wright

Wright joined the SUNO Athletics team as a consultant in the summer of 2023. What she found was a group of young men and women competing at a high level, representing their institution with pride, and doing it largely without the kind of platform their effort deserved. Changing that became the mission. By the 2025-26 academic year, SUNO Athletics had generated 138 total media touchpoints, 2.81 million Instagram views, and 57 live broadcasts on the Urban Edge Network — the most visible season in the modern era of Knights Athletics.

"When Dani first came in as a consultant, I knew this was going to be a special relationship. Her expertise was evident from day one, but what set her apart was how quickly she became invested — not just in the work, but in the mission. She didn't just step into a communications role; she stepped into a strategic partnership. She has helped us build and elevate our brand in ways that have genuinely changed how people see SUNO Athletics, and her fingerprints are on everything we do in this space."

— James A. Matthews, III, Director of Athletics & Men's Basketball Head Coach, SUNO

Seen, Heard, and Recognized

SUNO Athletics exists to give student-athletes the opportunity to continue their education while competing in the sport they love. That opportunity carries responsibilities on both sides — the student-athlete commits to growth, accountability, and excellence, and the institution commits to investing in them fully. For Wright, communications is one of the most direct ways an athletic department can honor that commitment.

When a student-athlete is nominated for a weekly award, when their highlight reaches tens of thousands of people, when their name appears in a feature story on a national platform — that is the institution saying: we see you, and we want the world to see you too. This year, SUNO made that statement 46 times through verified external media placements across eight outlets. It made it 324 times through posts published to the department's owned social media accounts. It made it 57 times through live broadcasts on UEN, where home games across all four varsity sports — Men's Basketball, Baseball, Women's Basketball, and Women's Volleyball — reached a national audience.

Wright was the color analyst for SUNO during the 2026 Hope Credit Union HBCUAC Basketball Championship

Those numbers are not metrics just for a dashboard. They are moments of recognition that accumulate into something a student-athlete carries with them — a documented record of what they accomplished, proof that their program invested in them, and exposure to audiences that can open doors long after their eligibility is over. Scouts, graduate programs, employers, and future mentors are all part of the audience that visibility builds. Wright understands that, and it shapes every decision she makes about what gets covered and how.

Commencement is the clearest measure of whether an athletic department is doing its job. Twenty-five student-athletes walked across that stage this year. Wright's story about this group ensured the world knew their names.

Championship Moments and What They Mean

The 2025-26 academic year gave SUNO Athletics a defining story: the Men's Basketball program entered the HBCUAC Tournament as the No. 4 seed, knocked off No. 1 Stillman on the road, and defeated Tougaloo 84-81 in overtime to claim the conference championship — the program's first title since 2012. That moment was broadcast live to a national audience on UEN and generated coverage from Sports Illustrated/HBCU Legends, HBCU Sports, WBOK radio, and Fox 8/WVUE. Men's Basketball alone accounted for 22 of the department's 46 external placements this year.

Matthews and Wright celebrate SUNO Men's Basketball championship win.

For those student-athletes, the championship was the culmination of a season of work. But the communications surrounding it extended the moment — gave it permanence, gave it reach, and gave those young men a record of their achievement that will exist long after the final buzzer. That is what a fully functioning sports communications operation provides, and it is what SUNO's student-athletes now have.

Baseball's nine external placements this year were anchored by the inaugural Ron Washington Classic at Wesley Barrow Stadium, where SUNO went 2-1 against NCAA Division II competition — a program that earned both local and national HBCU coverage. Track and Field, reinstated this year under head coach Safia Jenkins after a six-year hiatus, announced its return and immediately found an engaged audience: @sunoknightstf posted just five times and generated the highest engagement rate in the entire department portfolio at 3.01 percent — nearly double the average. Those student-athletes were new to the platform and the audience showed up for them. That does not happen without infrastructure, intentionality, and someone committed to making sure their story gets told.

Content That Connects

Across six owned Instagram accounts, SUNO Athletics published 324 posts that generated 2,812,581 total views, 31,588 likes, and 8,483 shares between July 1, 2025, and May 16, 2026. The highest-performing single post of the year — a player highlight on @sunoknightsbaseball published August 20, 2025 — earned 60,225 views. An awards announcement reached 44,821 people. A community engagement post documenting a visit to Frederick A. Douglass High School drew 41,854 views.

What those posts have in common is that they center on the people who matter most. The data carries what Wright has always believed: the content that travels furthest is the content that puts student-athletes and their stories at the center. Instagram images — the format most suited to recognition and portrait-style storytelling — averaged 10,191 views per post, more than double the 4,400 average for Reels. The audience responds to content that honors those who wear the uniform.

Beyond the owned accounts, third-party accounts, and partner institutions, another 229,215 views came from organic amplification — community members, fans, and fellow HBCU programs sharing what SUNO put out because it resonated. That kind of reach cannot be purchased. It is earned through consistent, quality storytelling that makes people feel something. On Facebook, the department recorded 335 unique engagements across the year with just one negative feedback event — a signal that SUNO's content environment is healthy, trusted, and growing.

The Knights Athletics Internship Program

Behind a significant portion of that content are the next generation of sports communications professionals. A vision of Matthews to give more students opportunities, Wright helped launch the Knights Athletics Internship Program and serves as its program director. The interns she has trained and mentored have taken on content creation across SUNO's sports accounts and the production of SUNO Knight Live and other broadcasts—and, in doing so, have become part of the story themselves.

The program reflects the same philosophy that drives SUNO Athletics at its core: give young people a real opportunity, hold them to a real standard, and watch what they are capable of. The student-athletes competing for the Knights are surrounded by peers who are learning alongside them — learning to document excellence, to tell the truth of what HBCU athletics looks like when it is done right, and to do it with professionalism and pride. That environment of accountability and growth extends through the entire department, and it is one of the most meaningful things Wright has helped build.

SUNO Knight Live

Wright also oversees SUNO Athletics broadcasting, including the department's flagship storytelling show, SUNO Knight Live. Now in its second season on UEN, the show aired original episodes this year — from the Season 2 premiere featuring Volleyball Media Day to two interviews with nationally known media outlets conducted for SUNO Athletics. SUNO Knight Live exists to tell the stories that numbers cannot capture: the journeys, the sacrifices, the reasons a young person chose SUNO, and what that choice has meant for their life.

In Her Own Words

Wright does not talk about communications strategy the way most people in her field do. She talks about it the way coaches talk about player development — as a responsibility, not a function.

"The world needs to know about SUNO Athletics and the great things our student-athletes are doing. That is what drives me every single day. These young people are here because they believed in this department, and they deserve a department that loudly believes in them — one that tells their story, amplifies their accomplishments, and makes sure that when an opportunity is looking for them, it can find them. Every post, every broadcast, every feature we put out is for them. I have always believed you should leave every space better than you found it. I hope we have done that for SUNO Athletics — and I know this place has made me better for being here."

— Dani Wright

About Dani Wright

Danielle Wright is a strategic communications professional with more than 15 years of experience in athletic communications, academics, and higher education. She earned her bachelor's degree in sports management from Hampton University and her master's degree in athletic administration from Indiana University. In addition to her role with SUNO Athletics, Wright serves as Director of Strategic Communications for the HBCU Athletic Conference and is the principal of Wright Relations, a communications and brand consulting firm serving nonprofit and faith-based organizations and entrepreneurs.

"Dani's professionalism and passion are unmatched. That combination — not one without the other — is what is going to take her to great heights. She is an amazing woman, and SUNO is truly lucky to have her."

— James A. Matthews, III

-SUNOKNIGHTIFE-

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