Colin McDonough is in his eighth year serving has Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations and Communications at his alma mater.
In his role at Northwest Missouri State University, McDonough coordinates, manages and executes the media relations efforts for the University's 16 intercollegiate sports.
Since joining the Bearcat athletic department in the summer of 2018, McDonough has overseen the media relations duties for three men's basketball NCAA national championships (2019, 2021 and 2022). McDonough has helped Northwest gain 28 College Sports Communicators Academic All-America honorees since 2018. He has promoted two national players of the year in Trevor Hudgins (NABC Div. II Player of the Year; Bevo Francis Award) and Sam Roberts (Cliff Harris Award) and national coach of the Year Ben McCollum (NABC).
He served as a member of Northwest Missouri State University's Staff Council and was the chair of the Employee Engagement and Recognition Committee.
He was honored as a
25-Year Award winner by College Sports Communicators in 2025.
McDonough served as the media relations/statistics coordinator for the 2019 and 2023 NCAA Div. II Men's Basketball Central Region tournaments held in Bearcat Arena. He also assists on the statistical crew at the MIAA men's/women's basketball tournaments each year in Kansas City, Mo.
McDonough returned to Maryville after three different stints at the Division I level. He spent 13 years at the University of Northern Iowa, serving the last eight years as the Assistant Athletics Director for Athletic Communications. During his time with the Panthers, he oversaw the public relations duties for the department's 17 sports. Prior to his tenure at UNI, he spent five years on the media relations staff at Northern Colorado and previous to that he gained experience as an athletics communications intern at the University of Akron for a year.
He received a degree in Journalism from Northwest in 1998. While an undergraduate, he was on staff of the Northwest Missourian and a student assistant in the athletics media relations office for the Bearcats under director Andy Seeley.
"I'd like to thank Andy Peterson and the Northwest athletic department staff for allowing me this opportunity to return to my alma mater and help promote Bearcat athletics," McDonough said. "Maryville and Northwest have always held a special place for myself and my family. We have been able to watch from afar as Bearcat athletics have reached the pinnacle of championship efforts. Now we look forward to our return and being a part of the action up close."
McDonough replaced Marshall Fey who departed for Texas A&M Corpus Christi in April. In the interim the position had been filled by Andrew Sherry, Torri Blythe and Quaid Curtin. The athletic department would like to acknowledge and thank these three individuals for their fantastic contributions to Bearcat Athletics during this transition.
"Colin's a Bearcat and has been around a lot of successful programs at a couple of high-caliber Division I athletic departments. We are fortunate to get him back to Maryville and know he will help us improve Bearcat Athletics," added Bearcat Director of Athletics Andy Peterson.
McDonough is originally from Osceola, Iowa. His wife, Joni, is a native of Maryville, Mo., and is an International Admissions Specialist at Northwest. They have two sons, Dalton and Graham.
