Zach O'Kelley enters his fifth year as Sports Information Director at the University of Tennessee Southern, where he serves as the primary media contact for all 19 Firehawk athletic programs.
Since being named full-time director in the fall of 2021, O’Kelley has overseen all communications for the Department of Athletics. His responsibilities include serving as the official statistician, managing gameday operations, producing gameday materials, leading design and content creation for utsfirehawks.com, and promoting Firehawk teams and student-athletes across social media platforms.
In 2024, O’Kelley was a main contributor in the complete redesign of utsfirehawks.com, which included transitioning from the site’s hosting partner PrestoSports to SIDEARM Sports, enhancing both the user experience and overall functionality of the athletic department’s digital presence. He was recently honored as the Southern States Athletic Conference Sports information Director of the Year for 2024-25.
O’Kelley launched his sports information career at Bethel University (Tenn.) in 2015. There, he managed live broadcasts of home events and coaches shows, scheduled gameday staff and student workers, served as the official statistician, and provided on-air analysis for football and basketball broadcasts. He was also the voice of the BatCats and directed the production of gameday programs. O'Kelley was also an intregal part of BU earning the SSAC Gameday Host award in 2017.
In addition to his collegiate experience, O’Kelley was a key part of the scoring staff for the Jackson Generals during their 2018 and 2019 Southern League Championship seasons.
As a former student-athlete, O’Kelley competed for two years with the Bethel men’s bowling team, where he set program records for highest spare percentage in a season (86.9%) and most consecutive frames without an open (189). He tallied four top-ten finishes and has recorded 15 sanctioned perfect games and three 800 series (851, 816, 857).
A native of Killen, Alabama, O’Kelley earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Management with an emphasis in Accounting from Bethel University in 2015. He resides in Pulaski with his dog Butthead.Â
