Michelle Murch joined Barry University Athletics in the fall of 2024 as the Associate Director of Athletic Communications. She coordinates the department's social media channels and serves as the primary contact for men's & women's volleyball, beach volleyball, men's basketball, softball and men's & women's swimming.
Prior to coming to The Shores, she worked for USA Softball and served at her alma mater, St. Thomas University, in sports information for almost 10 years.
The South Florida native came to St. Thomas in Fall 2014 as a freshmen on the softball team. In her first year, Murch became involved in the athletic department helping run scoreboards for home soccer, volleyball, and basketball contests. While also being a student-athlete, Murch was a part of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee on campus serving as the president in her junior and senior year. Murch also served as The Sun Conference's representative at the national level being a part of the original NAIA Association of Student Athletes in 2016-17 and 2017-18. In this role, she developed connections with other student-athletes around the country and helped make sure the voice of the student-athletes were made in the decision making of new rules and procedures.
Murch was a four-year starter on the softball team from 2014-2018. During her time she was named the team's Most Valuable Player in 2017, the department's Silver Bobcat (this award is given to one male and one female for their character and how they best represent the five core values of the NAIA's Champion of Character) in 2018, the Sun Conference's A.O Duer Recipient in 2016 and Dr. Leroy Walker representative in 2017, as well Softball's Champion of Character recipient for the conference in 2018. Academically, Murch was a two-time Daktronics® Scholar-Athlete and two-time member of the Sun Conference All-Academic Team.
On the sports information side, Murch grew her role within the department from running scoreboards to also learning all the roles on the basketball table, public address announcing, and learning the StatCrew software. As the world continued to grow on the media side, her roles increased to photography, graphic design, and running social media accounts.
After graduation, Murch joined the department full-time in January 2019 taking on the role of Manager of Digital Media and Game Operations. This made her the sole supervisor of all home contests making sure they had the right coverage at the press level and operations of the game. In the summer of 2021, Murch became the head of the department officially becoming the Director of Athletic Communications.Â
Outside from St. Thomas, Murch has worked in ticket operations working at Complete Ticket Solutions as a Print Services Coordinator and the Miami Dolphins working the ticket booth at events held at Hard Rock Stadium. From June 2021 to July 2023, Murch also dipped into the conference level serving as the digital media manager and later the head conference SID, running the conference socials and maintaining the website and stats. Murch was the main contact for the SUN while handling the all polls, players of the week, and all championship events.
