Longtime Tucsonan and Arizona Daily Star contributor Carrie Gerlach Cecil has been named one of the 50 most influential women in sports by Sports Business Journal.
Cecil and other “Game Changers” will be honored Wednesday with a gala at MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and Jets.
The wife of UA defensive backs coach Chuck Cecil, Carrie Cecil is CEO and founder of Anachel, a crisis, litigation and strategic communications firm that handles brand and reputation management,
“League commissioners, team owners, head coaches and pro athletes have Cecil on speed dial, just in case,” Sports Business Journal wrote.
The magazine calls Cecil “one of the more indispensable characters in sports.”
Sports Business Journal recalled how Big Ten Conference commissioner Kevin Warren enlisted Cecil in 2020 when he and the conference were vilified for their COVID-19 stance and decision to pause their football season.
Cecil led the conference’s crisis strategies, “helped Warren reinvent his public persona and continues to advise him on how to properly disseminate the conference’s views on its media rights deal and impending expansion,” the magazine wrote.
“There is no one better than Carrie Cecil at building and maneuvering public relations and crisis communications strategies and narratives for high-stakes issues,” Warren said of Cecil. “She has impeccable talent, work ethic and relationships.”
Warren turned to Cecil this summer, when it came time to announce the addition of USC and UCLA to the conference. Cecil built and executed the conference’s communications plans for its new media rights agreements with Fox, Big Ten Network, CBS, NBC and Peacock.
The Big Ten Conference is one piece of Anachel’s sports business. Cecil has worked alongside NFL and NBA owners, head coaches and athletic directors across collegiate sports during senate hearings, Title IX scandals and headline issues. Sports Business Journal noted Cecil’s work with Michigan men’s basketball coach Juwan Howard and former LSU coach Ed Orgeron. She has media trained players and coaches at over 20 NFL clubs, including the Seahawks, Giants, Jets, Bills, 49ers and Colts.
Cecil, who grew up in Phoenix and Tucson, credits her mother and brother for having the biggest impact on her career.
“My mom was a single mother who worked multiple jobs and taught me that with grit, heart, and faith, I could accomplish anything, and my brother Jeff, taught me how to throw a fast and perfect spiral with a football,” she said. “He instilled in me the philosophy to catch the ball or be hit by it. That philosophy of controlling the ball or being taken out by it is the thread woven into the fabric of our firm’s culture.”
Cecil has spent more than 25 years in the communications business, and said she is “blessed to have attended thousands of remarkable sporting events.” She said it’s tough to pick a favorite.
“How do you compare sitting with Hank Aaron in the dugout the night the Boston Red Sox broke ‘the Curse of the Bambino’ in Game 4 of the 2004 World Series to standing with Jimmie Johnson on the track of the Daytona 500 during the national anthem or watching Brett Favre throw four touchdowns the day after his father died and feeling Irvin’s spirit everywhere in the Raiders’ stadium? There is no way to rank moments like these,” she said. “However, I will say that there is nothing more special than watching my incredible husband, Chuck Cecil play or coach on any given Saturday or Sunday.”
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<&rdpEm>Compiled in part from a news release.</&rdpEm>
