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Ken Sweeten

  • Title
    Associate Director of Athletics/Athletic Communications
  • Email Address
    sweetenk1@southernct.edu
  • Phone
    203-392-6005
  • Primary Contact for
    Contact for: Football, Field Hockey, Baseball, Administration
Ken Sweeten joined Southern Connecticut State University's athletics department as the associate athletic director for athletic communications in 2018-19. In 2025-26, he enjoys his 29th year in college athletics, which began as a student manager for the Southern New Hampshire Baseball team in 1996. In his role with the Owls, Sweeten oversees all athletic communications for SCSU's 19 varsity sports and more-than 500 student-athletes. In addition to coordinating coverage for SCSU Athletics & Recreation, Sweeten also manages content on SCSUOwls.com, video streaming of all SCSU home athletic events on The Owls Network and content on all of SCSU Athletics' social media channels. 

Within the first few months of joining the athletic communications staff at SCSU, Sweeten was able to secure national exposure for the athletic department when women's basketball All-American Kiana Steinauer was highlighted in Sports Illustrated. In addition to his media relations and content management role, Sweeten also guided SCSU Athletic Communications through its inaugural season on the NE10Now video stream platform while enhancing the department's in-game video engagement with fans on social media. In his first year, Sweeten increased content viewership on SouthernCTOwls.com to the most interactions in the website's history, which included a 40% increase from the 2017-18 academic year and a 60% increase from 2016-17. 

Recently, Sweeten has continued to enhance the Owls' video stream, including the play-by-play broadcast facilitated by SCSU undergraduate and graduate students while also incorporating multi-camera video offerings. Since 2021, Sweeten has also tasked his office with building a catalog of highlights for every sport at Southern Connecticut. 

Sweeten has worked to consistently improve on all of Southern Connecticut Athletics' multimedia offerings and has shown consistent growth across all platforms. Upon his arrival at SCSU, Sweeten redesigned the department's virtual archives and relaunched a social media branding initiative. He also redesigned and rebranded the Official Website of SCSU Athletics, SCSUOwls.com, to be more interactive and provide an improved mobile platform. He is currently overseeing a refresh of the Owls' website for launch in Fall 2024. In 2020, he launched the "Owl or Nothing" podcast and serves as a staff advisor for the Athletes Fighting Injustice student-athlete group.  

Sweeten came to SCSU from Quinnipiac University, where he was the longest-tenured sports information director in school history, spanning a time of 12 years. While at Quinnipiac, Sweeten coordinated all athletic communications efforts for the university's 21 varsity teams and 450 student-athletes while working with four full-time staff professionals and three graduate assistants. During his 12 years in Mt. Carmel, Sweeten managed all strategic communications and coordinated extensive multimedia enhancements, including the hiring of two full-time video producers and the university's expansion to ESPN3 and ESPN+. 

Sweeten was also charged with coordinating all athletic communications efforts for Quinnpiac's nationally-ranked men's ice hockey program that played in two NCAA Frozen Fours and two NCAA National Championship Games (2013, 2016). In 2014, Sweeten also served as the media relations coordinator for the 2014 NCAA Women's Ice Hockey Frozen Four and National Championship as well as the 2013 NCATA National Championship and the 2017 NIRA National Championship that were hosted by Quinnipiac University.  

During his time with Quinnipiac, Sweeten secured local, regional and national print, television, radio and social media coverage for all of the Bobcats' athletic teams, successfully coordinating features with ESPN, Sports Illustrated, New York Times, New York Daily News, Washington Post, Boston Globe, New Haven Register and Hartford Courant. In addition, he served as an associate producer on Quinnipiac's Emmy-nominated 30-minute highlight and feature show "Bobcats Unleashed" that was featured on NESN and SNY. He also helped produce over 100 televised games that appeared on ESPN, SNY, MSG, NESN and CBS Sports. 

Prior to Quinnipiac, Sweeten served as the director of athletic media relations at Pace University, while his athletic communications career started as an university assistant at SCSU for CoSIDA and SCSU Athletics Hall of Fame sports information director Rick Leddy.

At Quinnipiac, Sweeten created the Bobcats Sports Media Group, which was a student-operated organization that created multimedia content for Quinnipiac Athletics. In his 12 years serving as a mentor, Sweeten helped in the careers of more than 30 undergraduate and graduate students that went on to work for over 50 collegiate and professional sports organizations.

No stranger to the Northeast 10 Conference, Sweeten completed his undergraduate degree in sport management with a concentration in marketing and promotions at Southern New Hampshire University, then New Hampshire College, in 2000. As an undergraduate student, Sweeten worked for four years in the sports information office, assisting with statistics for basketball and serving as the official scorer for baseball. 

Sweeten is an active member of the College Sports Information Directors of American (CoSIDA) and has served on the Mentorship Committee and the CoSIDA U Committee. He also authored an article that was published in the Summer 2016 edition of CoSIDA 360 magazine. Also engaged in his hometown's governance, Sweeten has been a member of the Town of Hamden Parks & Recreation Commission and in 2023 was selected to join the Hamden SPCP: Strengthening Police and Community Partnership. His role will be as an advisor for a group tasks with improving relations between the Hamden Police Department and the Hamden community. He is also a volunteer coach with Hamden Father's Softball. 

In 2017, he received a Special Recognition Award from the Hamden High School Athletic Hall of Fame and in 2020 he was named to the Town of Hamden Parks and Recreation Committee. In 2005, he was recognized by Pace University's Department of Student Affairs as one of the university's top student group advisor's for his work with the student newspaper with the Pace Pride Award. In 2023, he was also recognized by Southern Connecticut State University with a Staff Excellence award. 

Sweeten graduated with a bachelor's degree in sport management with a concentration in marketing & promotions from Southern New Hampshire University in 2000. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in sport management with a concentration in athletic administration from Southern Connecticut State University, due to be completed by Summer 2024. 

Ken and his wife, Jennifer, currently reside in his hometown of Hamden, Conn. with their daughter, Kenzie, and dogs, Gordie and Bandit.