Jeff Cunningham joined the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) as the Assistant Director of Media Relations in January 2017, after serving in a similar capacity for just over eight years at Hampton University. He was promoted to Director of Media Relations in January 2021, and as of January 2022, he is now the Director of Strategic Communications.
He is the conference's primary media contact for volleyball, women's basketball, track & field, bowling, men's and women's tennis and esports, and he is also the secondary contact for the rest of the MEAC's sponsored sports.
In addition, Cunningham is the lead script writer for the MEAC Digital Network.
While at Hampton, Cunningham served as the primary media contact for volleyball, women's basketball, cross country, track & field and sailing. Cunningham's time at Hampton saw him serve as media liaison for five MEAC championships in women's basketball, two conference championships in volleyball, countless conference and national honors in track & field and the sailing program's first-ever national regatta qualification in 2016.
Cunningham was also the lead play-by-play voice for football and basketball on the Pirates Sports Network. In addition, Cunningham was responsible for maintaining content for the official Hampton University athletics website, as well as writing and editing content in various athletics media guides and other publications.
Before coming to Hampton, Cunningham was a freelance high school sports reporter for the Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) and South Hampton Roads high school correspondent for the website HRVarsity.com, where he covered a variety of sports — including football, basketball, soccer, softball, wrestling, track & field and field hockey.
He has also worked part-time as a board operator for the radio station formerly known as The Game (102.1 FM/1490 AM) in Virginia Beach, Va.
Cunningham is a 2006 graduate of Old Dominion University, where he earned a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Communications with an emphasis in Mass Media. At ODU, Cunningham spent five years as a sports writer for the campus newspaper, The Mace & Crown, as well as serving a semester as sports editor.
Cunningham was also the play-by-play voice for men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball for the campus radio station, WODU. He also co-hosted a weekly sports talk show on the station called Courtside.
Cunningham was also a Student Ambassador at ODU, serving as Vice President for one year, and he spent his summers as an orientation counselor, helping incoming students and their families begin the process of acclimating to college life.
In his spare time, Cunningham is an avid auto racing fan, and he enjoys reading and writing. To date, Cunningham has self-published seven novels, Bounty, Blood Ties, Behind the Badge, Behind the Mask, Betrayal, Bitter End, and Notna, one collection of short stories, Legends of the Gem, and the non-fiction book The Art of Reading: How Reading Can Help You Become a Better, More Productive Writer, under the pen name J.D. Cunegan. He has also had works appear in the anthologies Cracks in the Tapestry, Warps in the Tapestry and Courage on Infinite Earths.