GREENWOOD, Ind.  --  John Kean has been named a recipient of the College Sports Communicators Lifetime Achievement award. This award is presented to members for distinguished career service who have served at least 25 years in the profession and who are retiring, have retired, or are leaving the athletic communications profession.

After serving as the Director of Athletic Communications for the last 34 years at Missouri S&T, Kean stepped down from that full-time role on August 5, 2024. He continues to work with S&T athletics in a part-time role.

Kean played an integral part in S&T's success since joining the staff in 1990, covering countless stories of the accomplishments of Miner teams and their student-athletes. In his time with Missouri S&T, John has covered several Miner teams that won conference championships as well as over 100 student-athletes who earned Academic All-America honors. Additionally, he promoted seven Academic All-America of the Year selections, 23 GLVC Scholar-Athletes of the Year, six winners of the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award, and two Ken B. Jones Student Athletes of the Year.

Among his leadership roles, Kean was president of D2SIDA for four years before serving another three years on the College Sports Communicators Board of Directors from 2018-21. He was vice chairman on the College Division Management Advisory Committee within CSC, and served on the GLVC's scheduling committee and the programming subcommittee during the creation of the GLVC Sports Network. 

Kean's contributions also extended to several NCAA tournaments, both on the regional and national level. He has worked in nine men's basketball and two women's basketball elite eight championships and helped develop the NCAA DII men's basketball website home page.

Kean was inducted into the CSC Hall of Fame in 2021 and last June, received the 2024 Warren Berg Award for outstanding commitment to athletic media relations in the college division. He received the Dr. Thomas Kearns Service Award from the GLVC in 2018 and the Roy Pickerill Distinguished Service Award from the NCAA Division II Sports Information Directors Association (D2SIDA) in 2023.