Marissa Cockrell

An award-winning content creator, Marissa Cockrell has 15 years of sports production and project management experience at both the professional and collegiate levels. 

Marissa Cockrell was the first full-time female to join the University of South Carolina’s Gamecock Production department in August 2011. As the assistant external video director, she oversaw the creative content schedules for all 24 sports teams, marketing, and the Gamecock Club. She was the lead producer for the Women’s Basketball program under head coach Dawn Staley, managing all video content for social, in-game, team intros, and recruitment. Cockrell has covered three national championships, as well as multiple Final Four and SEC tournament wins with the Gamecocks. She also shot and edited all home and away games for football, including bowl games, and produced content for IMG’s coaches shows on Fox Sports South.

Cockrell worked with staff to produce, shoot, and edit for the award-winning documentary/reality series, Gamecock Confidential. The program, first created in 2011, was a pioneer documentary style series for internal college athletics. The series covers a specific team every day during pre-season through their first game of the season. In 13 seasons the crew covered football, both basketball programs, softball, baseball, and both soccer programs. The series has won numerous Emmy awards, Telly Awards, and Sports Video Group Collegiate awards for both staff and student categories. 

Cockrell’s main responsibility when she joined Gamecock Productions was to develop a student production assistant program. Today it is an an award-winning student production program, earning multiple SVG Collegiate awards. The hands-on learning program has a 100% success rate for graduates finding a job in the field within 2 months of graduation. She presented at the 2017 SVG Collegiate Summit on the student program and since then has mentored several other college video departments to develop their own student programs. In 2011, her students re-established the National Broadcasting Society chapter at USC, winning Rookie Chapter of the Year and several video awards. Cockrell was awarded Advisor of the Year in 2012.

In August 2017, Gamecock Productions and the New and Creative Media departments merged at USC Athletics. Cockrell was promoted to assistant video director of external communications and played an integral part of the merger to combine staff, students, and projects. She currently oversees the creative content operations for 21 of the 24 sports teams, Gamecock Club, marketing, and community outreach departments. She is also the liaison between her department, live events, and the broadcast network for feed requests. Cockrell also handles any network and external video requests. She continues to manage the student production assistant program and remains the executive producer for the women’s basketball team. Cockrell currently serves on the university’s Leadership and Service Center’s Women’s Mentor Network program, is a member of the Sports Video Group Women’s association (SVGW), a member of the National Broadcasting Society (NBS), and has served on the athletic department’s social committee since 2012. 

Previously, Cockrell spent 8 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies Organization and ECHL Reading Royals as a camera operator. In 2008-2009 she worked in the producer’s department at NFL Films on CBS Showtime’s Inside the NFL, Hardknocks, NFL Presents, and on a documentary, The LeMan’s Race: Truth in 24. She also freelanced for the NFL Network. In March 2009, she joined MLB Productions as a seasonal highlight editor when the MLB Network launched, before going back to Kutztown University of Pennsylvania to pursue her master’s degree. 

From 2009-2011, Cockrell worked at Kutztown University as a graduate assistant in the sports information department. She challenged the Electronic Media department to use their mobile truck to create the first live-broadcasted doubleheader basketball game in over a decade. She was the executive producer and directed the broadcast, as well as the PSAC tournament games and later that spring, a baseball game. Today the department produces live broadcasts regularly for football, rugby, and baseball games, as well as the PSAC league playoff football games. 

Cockrell graduated with a Masters Degree from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania in 2011. In 2008 she was the first electronic media student to earn dual degrees from Kutztown University. She received her Bachelor of Science in electronic media with a concomitant in journalism/public relations and a Bachelor of Arts in English/professional writing.