Then e-mail made the distribution of all sorts of information a snap. Still images and video and all kinds of other files now can be shared with the touch of a button. In some ways, e-mail has taken the personal touch out of the interaction between media and athletics communication staff - but it also has made life far easier for all involved.

Athletics Web sites, once rather static and one-dimensional, have changed drastically. Video and interactivity now dominate that space - and colleges and universities have begun to treat their sites as their own news outlets. Notre Dame has routinely been streaming about 100 live home athletic events per year for some number of seasons now. Back in August, Irish head coach Brian Kelly announced the reinstatement of Michael Floyd via both printed statements and video interviews that broke on und.com (and were communicated as well via Twitter). Kelly and Floyd met with the media later that same afternoon, but for some period of time Notre Dame's athletic Web site served as the source for the story.

The various opportunities to communicate now involve much greater integration within the Notre Dame athletics department. A traditional press release now can be supported by images, video, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, text alerts and other social media options.

Many Notre Dame sports programs have created their own Facebook and Twitter accounts, in great part to help recruiting. As the NCAA has eliminated printed media guides as permissible recruiting aids, coaches now look to electronic options to tell their story.

Into Twitter? You can find a variety of Notre Dame coaches, athletes, sports and staffers who Tweet. Easily the most popular in terms of followers has been women's basketball star Skylar Diggins who watched her numbers fly off the charts last March and April during Notre Dame's run to the NCAA national championship game. Another popular Notre Dame Tweeter? It's football equipment manager Ryan Grooms, whose followers are obsessed with the details and intricacies of Irish football uniforms, gear and equipment items.

The Notre Dame ticketing and promotions staff put together a far-reaching Irish Facebook page to help promote all the Irish events - and it's now been combined with the Notre Dame media relations version to create a more consistent and integrated message.

USA Today recently commended Notre Dame's athletic text alert system that provides immediate scores, statistics and other announcements via cell phone texts as events happen.

Even at a time when media coverage has never been more extensive for college programs, thanks in great part to the proliferation of Web sites and cable, schools are doing even more on their own to tell their stories. Institutions are realizing they have more access to their own players and coaches than anyone, so who better to tell the story of what's really happening behind the scenes? Cutting-edge video options such as flip-cams, often wielded by student-athletes in locker rooms and team buses, make posting casual video on Facebook or Web sites almost an instantaneous phenomenon. While athletics departments routinely depended for years on the media to tell those stories, the many new and social media now often allow schools to go to their alumni, fans and other constituents directly. Notre Dame in August launched its most ambitious blog yet on und.com - the Irish UNDerground, a compendium of facts and figures, video and still images, links and trivia.

The Big Ten Conference has its own network. So does the University of Texas. There isn't a league or major school of note that isn't at least contemplating what it can do in that sphere.

Notre Dame hired its own director of digital media for athletics over the summer in Dan Skendzel. He's the first person assigned full-time to the challenge of communicating via that medium. He has a tall order in front of him as the Irish staff considers its options and opportunities, its archives and its interest and ability in creating programming on its own. There's a one-year-old video board at Purcell Pavilion and one to come at the new Compton Family Ice Arena that both provide challenges and opportunities in a medium that remains relatively new on the Irish campus.

So, take stock of all your options. You can still purchase a traditional printed media guide (although electronic versions already exist and digital versions are coming) or watch a traditional coach's show on television. You can still pick up a handful of newspapers on Sunday morning to read what the mainstream sportswriters have to say about today's game. But you don't have to wait that long if you don't want to. There are plenty of Web sites that will post coverage within hours. You can watch live postgame Brian Kelly press conferences on und.com. Original "webisodes" on und.com provide intimate glimpses into places traditional media seldom can go. Into the social media? There's now an athletics staffer responsible for nothing but constantly blogging and posting information on Notre Dame football for Facebook and Twitter. You can't get it from the ultimate source any more quickly than that.

And, a few decades back, when the unmistakable odor of the Telecopier was wafting through the air in the sports information hallway, who would have believed all this would be happening?

- John Heisler