Nancy Elder used to sit around the kitchen table with her older brothers, talking about the latest sports news. Janey Murray grew up rowing competitively and tagging along to her brother’s baseball tournaments, eventually developing a love for the tales of “America’s pastime.”
Both women knew they wanted to be storytellers.
“From an early age, I started thinking about how writers shape the stories of these games,” Elder ABJ ’88 says. “I got more interested in who’s behind it.”
Now, Elder and Murray shape those stories for Major League Baseball’s New York Mets.
Since being appointed the Mets chief communications officer in 2022, Elder has overseen the franchise’s communications strategies and public affairs. Sometimes that means organizing press conferences for coaches and prepping players for interviews. Other times, it’s publicizing events at Citi Field, the Mets’ home park in Queens.
As a social media coordinator, Murray AB ’19 handles planning posts, covering games, and producing content like a recent behind-the-scenes video that gave fans a glimpse into the long days of the team’s clubhouse staff.
Elder and Murray often collaborate, like they did when the Mets launched the lifestyle-focused podcast Meet at the Apple, which showcases the lives of current and past players and staff members beyond simple stats.
“It was a fully integrated effort among comms, social, marketing, and the folks who host the podcast,” Elder says. “And we’ve seen that there’s a real appetite for getting a different side of what happens here. It’s an example of teams coming together, seeing where there’s a gap, coming up with something cool and then launching it in in a unique way.”
The reputation of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication drew both the aspiring storytellers to UGA. While on campus, Elder served as president of the university’s Public Relations Student Society of America and worked with community clients while still in school. Murray completed the sports media certificate program and covered Georgia football and baseball for The Red & Black.
“Writing for The Red & Black was what really taught me how to write, how to interact with athletes, how to cover a game, and everything I still use today working in social media,” Murray says.
After college, Murray took several sports internships and worked for the National Baseball Hall of Fame before landing a full-time job with the Mets. Elder’s previous work included several high-level communications positions, ranging from MasterCard to JetBlue to Mattel.
“I’ve worked in so many different industries from airline to financial services, and sports are such a unique space because of the level of passion that the fans have,” Elder said. “Baseball means a lot in their life, and it is a very special experience being part of that.”
Working in sports can entail long, odd hours, especially in a 162-game baseball season—plus spring training and, possibly, the postseason. But Murray and Elder recognize that each game is a chance to connect with others who are just as passionate about the Mets as they are.
“I love the number of people I get to interact with on a typical game day,” Murray says, “from the security guards to the players, to fans, to coaches, to coworkers to everyone in between.”
