Purdue executive vice president and athletics director Mike Bobinski announced the hiring of Patrick Crawford as associate athletics director for strategic communications on June 3, 2021.
Crawford leads Purdue Athletics' strategic communications office and also oversees the department's broadcast services and photography units. The overall communications group generates information and provides content about the Boilermakers in innovative ways to a variety of stakeholder groups, including fans, donors, alumni and the media, both locally and nationally. The team manages the brand visibility and publicity of all 18 Purdue sports programs, working closely with the department's marketing office and creative services staff to promote the overall image of Purdue Athletics on social media, web and within additional digital channels.
During Crawford's tenue at Purdue, he has served as a the department's chief communications officer and primary media contact. He was a member of the school's Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) core group, a leadership unit designed to guide Purdue Athletics on the topics of NIL, student-athlete branding and entrepreneurial opportunities. Additionally, Crawford is Purdue's liaison to the Big Ten Network and the Big Ten Conference on matters of television schedule administration.
Purdue Football's social media presence, with guidance from Crawford and the strategic communications team, generated the most engagements and impressions ever during the 2021 football season. Additionally, the department was able to organize the promotion of two All-Americans from within the football program in wide receiver David Bell and defensive end George Karlaftis.
Crawford came to Purdue after spending the previous three years as the associate director of athletics for communications and digital strategy at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, serving as the chief communications officer for the department. While at Louisiana, Crawford reinvented the Ragin' Cajuns content creation strategy, doubling the amount of video pieces generated for all social channels while guiding football to its most visible season ever in 2020.
Crawford implemented the school's first Digital Strategy division within the athletics department before the 2018-19 year, a move that resulted in increased awareness and engagement in digital media. He also served on the department's senior leadership team and oversaw a full-time staff of nine employees across communications, digital strategy and broadcast services.
Prior to his time with the Ragin' Cajuns, he served as the assistant director of strategic communications at Missouri for five-plus years (2013-18), working with the men's basketball program led by former Purdue standout Cuonzo Martin. He also served as a secondary contact for the Missouri football program for two years and organized promotion of a pair of defensive end All-Americans in Michael Sam and Shane Ray.
He also had stops in the same capacity at Rutgers (2010-11) and Arkansas (2011-12) before heading to Missouri in January 2013.
Additionally, Crawford currently serves as vice president on the executive board of College Sports Communicators (CSC), a more than 4,000-member national association for strategic, creative and digital communicators across intercollegiate athletics in the United States and Canada. From its founding in 1957 until a name and vision change in 2022, the organization was known as College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Crawford earned a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University in journalism and mass communication, public relations emphasis with a speech communication minor. He and his wife, Alyssa (married in March 2022), reside in Lafayette.