Biography: Josh Burkholder enters his fifth year leading the communications efforts for Northwest Nazarene Athletics in the 2024-25 academic year.

Burkholder, who was promoted to Assistant Athletic Director for Communications in the summer of 2022, oversees all aspects of athletic communications for the Nighthawks’ 16 programs, including statistics, writing, media relations, social media, photography, graphic design, video production, and website management.

During his time at NNU, he has spearheaded improvements to NNU’s live streaming efforts, adding multi-camera broadcasts, instant replay, stats integration, and broadcasters to enhance the viewing experience. The athletics social media presence has also seen growth, highlighted by improvements in graphic design and video production. In the spring of 2022, Burkholder also oversaw a redesign of the nnusports.com website, adding components and refreshing the aesthetic to fit modern design trends. In addition, he has implemented a robust student worker program to help gameday efforts in statistics collection, live streaming, social media, and photography.

Burkholder also currently serves as the chair of the NCBWA Division II Baseball West Region (since spring 2022), coordinating the regional polls and honors throughout the spring as well as voting on national awards and the DII Top-25. In addition to those duties, he is a voting member of the D2SIDA DII Men’s Basketball West Region Poll (since fall 2022).

An eight-year member of the College Sports Communicators (CSC), Burkholder has received a pair of national recognitions for graphic design in the organization’s Publications and Digital Design contest, with top-five finishes in the College Division for a football touchdown motion graphic in 2020 and a track and field All-American graphic in 2019. Following the 2023-24 year, he also received a prestigious national award from the CSC organization, winning the Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest in the Athlete Profile category for a story on NNU volleyball player Caroline McMahon.

Prior to NNU, Burkholder spent two and a half years as the Assistant Sports Information Director at NCAA DII Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio. At Tiffin, he was the contact for 11 of the 23 sports, including serving as the primary gameday statistician for football, basketball, volleyball, and baseball. He also managed all of the planning, production, and implementation of the department’s social media, graphic design, and video efforts.

Tiffin’s social media presence increased dramatically during Burkholder’s tenure, with the total following across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook doubling and engagement quadrupling over his two and a half years. In particular, over that time frame the Twitter account following grew from 10th to third among the conference’s 12 athletic departments.

Before Tiffin, Burkholder spent two years at NCAA DIII Messiah College (now Messiah University) in Mechanicsburg, Pa., first as the Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant for just over one and a half years before receiving a promotion to Interim Coordinator of Athletic Communications for the final four months of spring 2018. During that time, he was the contact for five of the 23 programs and assisted with all aspects of the Falcons’ athletic communications.

Burkholder also gained valuable experience hosting and covering championships and postseason play over his four and a half years at Tiffin and Messiah. During that time, he helped host 18 conference championships and eight weekends of NCAA Tournament play. Highlights of covering teams in postseason action include Tiffin’s first-ever NCAA tournament appearance in baseball after starting the season 2-17, Tiffin’s first trip to the NCAA postseason for football in 2019, Tiffin earning three individual National Titles at the outdoor track and field championships in 2019, Messiah’s 2016 Field Hockey National Championship, Messiah’s 2017 Men’s Soccer National Championship, and serving as the Host Media Coordinator when Messiah hosted the First and Second Rounds of the 2018 NCAA DIII Women’s Basketball Tournament.

While at Messiah, Burkholder completed his Masters degree in Higher Education with a concentration in College Athletics Leadership. Prior to that, he received his undergraduate degree in Sport Management, Sports Information, and Information Technology from Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio, where he worked as a student assistant in the Sports Information Department for three years.

A native of Warden, Washington, Burkholder resides in Boise with his wife, Meg. In his spare time, he can be found cheering on all of the Seattle professional teams, reading science fiction, or racking up birdies on a disc golf course.

Favorite Thing About Working at NNU: My coworkers in the athletic department—we have a great coaching staff and amazing student-athletes.