HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss Director of Athletics Jeremy McClain announced Thursday the hiring of Sarah Klopfer as Assistant Athletic Director for Creative Strategy.

“After a national search, Sarah stood out from an outstanding applicant pool. Her skill set in graphic design and working at Oklahoma and Kent State will be a tremendous asset to Southern Miss Athletics. She will be taking our visual representation of the Southern Miss brand to the next level and we are so excited to have Sarah in the Black and Gold.” Brad Smith, Senior Associate AD for External Operations, said.

In her role at Southern Miss, Klopfer will oversee all graphic design, while also working to define the Southern Miss brand look-and-feel on a seasonal basis. She will also strategically develop visual assets to support and enhance social media campaigns, digital content, and organizational branding.

Klopfer comes to Southern Miss from the University of Oklahoma where she held the role of Assistant Director of Graphic Design in the school’s athletic department since August of 2019.

Her duties there included maintaining and elevating the Oklahoma Athletics brand through innovative design for print and digital outlets. Projects ranged from social media templates and logo design to marketing ads, giveaways and large-scale facility designs.

Klopfer worked with all 21 athletic programs in addition to the spirit squads and all internal departments with special emphasis on OU’s nationally renowned football, men’s gymnastics, softball, women’s basketball, women’s tennis and volleyball programs.

Prior to her stint at OU, she worked as a year as Assistant Director of Athletics Social Media and Communications at Kent State.

At Kent State, her responsibilities included management, direction and creation of digital content for the athletic website and social accounts across all athletic programs and departments. She was also charged with creating engaging and innovative still and motion designs that consistently identified, drove and communicated information about student-athletes and teams for social media, the website, game programs, wall graphics and various marketing materials as the primary graphic designer for the Athletic Department as well as coordinated and strategized social media marketing and promotional efforts.

She was present at all home athletic events (traveling with football and basketball to select events), managing both game day experience and in-game social media and graphic design coverage. She also provided sports information coverage for the sports of baseball, field hockey and indoor track and field, coordinating all media coverage, award nominations, statistics with StatCrew and press, hosting home and visiting radio teams and hiring photographers and public address announcers.

Her experience also includes being Interactive Media Coordinator/Graphic Designer at Creative Palette, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio as well as a Sports Information Intern at her alma mater, Hillsdale College, for two and a half years.

The 2016 graduate of Hillsdale College was a four-year member of the school’s softball team.

Klopfer begins her duties with the University on June 16.