Alan Wiederhold-Sohn is new to the area but not to the Mississippi Delta.
He became the new sports information director at Mississippi Valley State University a month ago, making this his second stint in the Delta. Wiederhold-Sohn, a 38-year-old native of Deer Park, Texas, worked in the sports information department as a graduate assistant at Delta State University in Cleveland for the 2009-10 school year.
He’s happy to be back for two reasons. It’s his first chance to be an SID at a Division I school, and he likes the slower pace of a small town.
“Even though I grew up in a suburb of Houston, Texas, I have never considered myself a big-city guy,” he said. “I enjoy the slower pace of life here, and I especially like how the communities get behind their high schools and colleges. It’s a real neat thing.”
There is just one thing he doesn’t like — the mosquitoes.
“We have them in Houston, but it’s nothing like here. I almost got carried off at a soccer game,” said Wiederhold-Sohn, Valley’s director of athletic media public relations.
His wife, the Korean-born Yon-Son, still lives in Houston, where she works as a lawyer. He said they will continue to live apart for now.
Yon-Son immigrated to America with her family in the early 1990s. The two met on Match.com in 2013 and were married two years later. At the time they met online, they were living about 75 miles apart in Texas — she in Tyler and he in Marshall.
“Our first five dates were in Longview, which is about halfway between the towns. It all worked out pretty good,” he said.
They don’t have children, but they both had two cats each when they married. Alan brought his two cats with him to Itta Bena. “It was a good thing because our cats really didn’t get along,” he said.
He also brought a good bit of SID experience with him to MVSU, which is his third stop in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
Before a one-month stint at the Baytown Sun newspaper in Texas, he worked two years a part-time assistant at Texas Southern. Prior to that, he served as a full-time assistant at Prairie View for two years. He has also worked in sports information at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, and LeTourneau University in Longview.
“I have always liked this business. It brings me great satisfaction,” he said. “I enjoy everything about game day and the whole press box experience, but what I really love is highlighting the athletes and telling their stories.
“My first month at Valley has been great. I have learned a lot for sure. There’s a big difference from being the assistant to the No. 1 guy, but I have enjoyed every minute of it.”
•Contact Bill Burrus at 581-7237 or bburrus@gwcommonwealth.com.
