Gray Assumes Assignment With USA Baseball
July 06, 2010 | Baseball
July 6, 2010
DURHAM, N.C. - East Carolina University Assistant Director of Athletics Media Relations Malcolm Gray has assumed a 40-day assignment as press officer for the 2010 Collegiate National Team (CNT), which began play Monday at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C.
Following the selection of the team and subsequent training period in Cary (July 6-11), the squad will play a five-game series against Korea at the USA Training Complex before squaring off against a Japanese Collegiate All-Star Team in a one-game, international friendship competition in Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium on July 21. From there, the team will travel to Taipei, Taiwan, for a four-game series against Chinese Taipei at Tien-Mu Stadium beginning July 25.
Team USA will close its summer season at the FISU World University Championships in Tokyo, Japan, from July 30 to Aug. 7. The U.S. has won the last three FISU World (2004, 2006, 2008) championships while Japan will compete for its first title.
Gray, who has spent the last six seasons as the media relations contact with the nationally-ranked Pirate baseball squad, will work directly with Team USA manager and University of Utah Head Coach Bill Kinneberg, CNT players, assistant coaches, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the United States Olympic Committee while serving as the primary day-to-day liaison with the media.
His job duties with the CNT consist of coordinating all interviews, serving as official scorer and pressbox supervisor, writing feature stories for national media and USA Baseball publications and working closely with baseball game-day operations and all other aspects of Team USA baseball as it pertains to media relations.
Of the 39 players invited to Cary, 22 will be named to the final roster. Gerrit Cole (UCLA), Sonny Gray (Vanderbilt), Brad Miller (Clemson) and Kolten Wong (Hawaii) all return from the 2009 Collegiate National Team. The player pool also includes 2010 College World Series (CWS) Most Outstanding Player Jackie Bradley, Jr., (South Carolina) as well as CWS participants Taylor Featherston (Texas Christian), Nolan Fontana (Florida), Sean Gilmartin (Florida State), Brian Johnson (Florida), Andrew Maggi (Arizona State), Steve Rodriguez (UCLA), Kyle Winkler (Texas Christian) and alternate Mike Zunino (Florida). Cole and Miller also competed in this year's CWS.
Also named to the roster was Baseball America First-Team All-America and College Player-of-the-Year Anthony Rendon (Rice). The sophomore third baseman received the 2010 Dick Howser Award, recognizing college baseball's player-of-the-year, and was a semifinalist for the USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation's top amateur player. Other Baseball America All-America selections invited to participate include First Teamer Taylor Dugas (Alabama), Second-Team selections Ryan Wright (Louisville) and Cole, and C.J. Cron (Utah), Alex Dickerson (Indiana) and Noe Ramirez (Cal State Fullerton) from the Third Team. Invitee Anthony Meo (Coastal Carolina) was also a Golden Spikes Award semifinalist.
At East Carolina, Gray currently works with the women's golf and soccer programs and, prior to working full-time with the baseball squad beginning in 2005, also served as the primary contact for women's basketball, track and field and tennis. His media services operation at Clark-LeClair Stadium has been recognized and lauded by national publications.
Gray, who completed his master's degree in sports management in 2004, has also worked on media relations committees at the 2002 and 2003 NCAA Women's Soccer College Cup (Cary, N.C.), 2004 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament (Raleigh, N.C.) and the 2009 BCS National Championship Game (Miami, Fla.).
He is a member of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA), serving as Conference USA's national voting member for its weekly national polls. Gray is also a member of College Sports Information Directors of America, Football Writers Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.
