From Freelancer to Digital Media Director

Evan Luecke's journey began in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was adopted and lived in Forney, Texas, a small suburb outside of Dallas. A former student-athlete at Texas A&M Commerce, he graduated in 2018 and began his career as a freelancer. His journey has landed him in Stephen F. Austin State University Athletics. Since January 2020, he has been the Director of Digital Media at SFA. We reached out to him to learn how he got to where he is today. 

We have to start in the beginning, where did your love and desire to work in sports come from?

My love of sports came from my brother, who was 6 years older than me so I grew up watching him play and fell in love with watching sports. I always played sports growing up. I started competing in track and cross country when I was in high school. I ended up getting good and was able to go compete at Texas A&M-Commerce. The feeling of freedom and still being able to compete was very attractive to me.  What made me want to work in sports was the desire to always be involved with the fast pace action and still using my competitiveness.

How did the opportunity to be the Director of Digital Media at SFA come about?

At the time I was freelancing in the Dallas area. I was driving home from covering Texas high school playoffs and my current supervisor gave me a call. My supervisor was talking about the opportunity and to see if I was interested in the position. Fun fact, I worked with my supervisor and he gave me my first opportunity to work with sports while I was competing in track shooting photos for the athletic department.

Now here I am as the Director of Digital Media, the focus of my job is on photography and social media. 

One of my favorite questions to ask is why do you think you got chosen for the position? To follow that, did you have any doubt you were going to get it?

Uh, that’s a hard one. I think it was my work and I think knowing Kevin (my supervisor) helped but I think Kevin knew what I was capable of doing. He knew I had a passion for telling stories and rebuilding brands.

I’d say there was a little doubt that the position would go through just from previous experiences of similar situations that fell through, but overall in terms of getting the position, no. I would say I was pretty confident.

Statement from Kevin Young (Person who hired Evan): "I wanted someone who could give us a boost from a content creation standpoint and someone who wasn’t afraid to think outside the box. We needed a go getter and someone who wasn’t afraid to attack the difficult task of overhauling the department and boosting our creative content. I’d loosely worked with Evan when he was in school and knew he would be someone that checked all of those boxes for us".


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Please share your advice to people out there looking for their first or next opportunity in sports.
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My advice to new creatives or anyone who is looking to break into the industry is a couple of things. Never stop seeking opportunities to grow. If there is any opportunity whether it’s paid or not especially when you’re starting out take it. Be open to learn and have a mentor. I think another big thing I learned is network but while doing that create personal relationships. Don’t just network to have that name next to yours. Get to know them, buy them a drink or coffee. ASK QUESTIONS!!! You don’t know what you don’t know until you know. I know that can be kind of confusing but overall be a sponge and learn. 

The floor is yours, shout out who you want!

Ahh the shoutouts there's quite a few.  Coach Burton, Jun Lee, Josh Manck, Brittany Gryder and the rest of the A&M-Commerce community for investing so much into me.  Kevin Young, for giving me this opportunity currently. James Townsend who originally introduced me to photography. So many more to give out but these are just a few. ​

You can connect with Evan Luecke on Twitter here and LinkedIn here.

By: Evan Luecke

Put together by Sports As a Job Editorial Team