Delanie Gearing joined the UC San Diego Athletics Department in March 2026 as the Assistant Director of Communications. In this role, she contributes to the department’s communications strategy, including media relations, and coverage of UC San Diego’s intercollegiate athletics programs. She is the primary contact for softball and track & field.
Gearing actively participates in the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Mentorship Program as both a mentor and a mentee, a unique dual role that reflects her commitment to continuous learning, leadership, and meaningful community engagement. She is a member of the 2025-26 CSC Inclusion Fellowship, an educational program designed to provide insights into inclusive best practices and to help communications and creative professionals in college athletics become effective advocates for inclusion while better supporting student-athletes, coaches, and administrators.Â
Prior to joining UC San Diego, Gearing gained extensive experience at Cal Poly Pomona, where she worked with the Assistant AD for Communications on media coverage for 11 intercollegiate sports. Her responsibilities included writing press releases, producing social media content, capturing photos and videos, and maintaining schedules, rosters, statistics, and historical records. She also assisted in executing home events, including managing game day staff, coordinating live statistics, and supporting broadcast production. In December 2024, she covered Cal Poly Pomona women’s soccer during its historic run to the program’s first national championship, producing multiple feature stories that highlighted the team’s achievement. Her work earned national recognition in May 2025 when she won the College Sports Communicators Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest for Best Season Recap in the District 8 College Division. She was also named runner-up in Event Coverage, General Feature, and Historical Feature categories.
Gearing also served as the Championships and Communications Intern for the PacWest Conference in Spring 2024, assisting in planning and executing championships for multiple sports, including tennis, baseball, softball, track and field, golf, and basketball, while supporting conference communications efforts.
From 2022 to 2024, Gearing held a variety of roles at Azusa Pacific University (APU). She began as a member of the game day operations crew, assisting with event setup and breakdown, live statistics, and ticketing for multiple sports. In Spring 2023, she interned with the Assistant Athletic Director for Internal Affairs, gaining experience in compliance, budgeting, Title IX, and departmental operations, while helping coordinate the PacWest Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Retreat. During the 2023-24 academic year, Gearing served as a Graduate Assistant in the APU Athletics Department, helping organize major departmental events such as Midnight Madness, Night of Champions, and the All-Athlete Banquet. In Spring 2024, she acted as interim compliance director, overseeing grade checks, study hall, class excusals, and assisting student-athletes with class scheduling.
Gearing earned her Master of Science in Physical Education with an emphasis in Sport Management from Azusa Pacific University in May of 2024 and completed her Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, with an emphasis in Health Professions and minors in Honors Humanities and Psychology, in May of 2023. She was a collegiate athlete, competing on Azusa Pacific’s swim team for five years and playing water polo during the 2022-23 season.
