Lehigh's Tourial leaving for the West Coast

FROM THE MORNING CALL

Jeff Tourial, Lehigh University's director of broadcast and multimedia, will be leaving the school after more than 10 years for a position with the West Coast Conference.

Tourial will become the director of communications for the WCC, which is based in San Bruno, Calif., near San Francisco. The conference features Gonzaga, St. Mary's and Portland among others.

It's a strong men's basketball conference and the season begins Nov. 12, so Tourial said: "I have to hit the ground running."

Tourial, 34, is from Georgia and a 1998 graduate of Syracuse University. He first came to the Lehigh Valley to work as the radio play-by-play man and media relations director for the Allentown Ambassadors independent baseball team in 1999.

Jim Marshall, then the sports information director at Lehigh, was also the official scorer for the Ambassadors. He brought Tourial over to South Mountain as an intern.

Tourial began at Lehigh as an intern in 2001. Marshall then left Lehigh for another opportunity and Tourial replaced him as sports information director. He served in that media relations role for four years and was shifted to advance the lehighsports.com online site.

Tourial has also been intricately involved with the development of the Lehigh Sports Magazine show, seen weekly on WFMZ-TV, Channel 69, and nationally on Fox sports oulets.

"I have treasured my time here," Tourial said. "I was given such a great opportunity here. I was supposed to be here for 10 months as an intern and wound up staying for 10 years. I am proud of what we've accomplished with our website and the video on our website. There's so much more that can be done here, but this was a terrific opportunity that I couldn't pass up."

Tourial's last event with Lehigh will be Saturday's football game at Goodman Stadium against Bucknell.

"What I will miss the most are the people we have here," Tourial said. "The people are special. We have terrific student-athletes and some amazing coaches. I'll still be following the teams online through lehighsports.com and the area papers."

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