A Year In The Books

Be around good people that motivate you through energy and laughter.

After about nine months in the program I find myself being able to better explain the meaningful experiences I’ve had since last July. When I went back to Corvallis, Oregon for Christmas in December I was still formulating a big-picture explanation for what the Sport Management Program has given me.

My stories, reflections and impressions given to my family and friends proved to be a laundry list of great experiences. I’ve worked with highly successful people in the NFL, collegiate athletics and the golf industry. I’ve work in great stadiums and during big games. So I started to think about what all these random experiences have in common. What is the common thread throughout each great experience in the Sport Management Program, whether it be in a job, school or social setting.

So I came to this…

For every great experience I’ve had in the last nine months, I always explain and frame the experience to others within the framework of who I was doing something with, rather than what I was doing.

Each great opportunity or experience seems to be great not because of what I am doing, but who I am doing it with.

Case in point: every morning I wake up and go to work with two of my best friends at the USGA, Jeff Stoefen and Kristen Chambers (both of Cohort 35). The internship is fantastic, the setting is ideal and the opportunity to work the U.S. Open for golf has been rewarding and will continue to develop as we get closer to the tournament.

But when I come back home or see a friend, every insight into the Open is always framed by the person I was doing something with. Nothing in the sport industry is isolated and if it is…you probably won’t remember a split second of it.

My stories always start…”So Kristen and I went…” or “Jeff and I were…”

How awesome is that?

The opportunity to work is sports is great, but every now and then we need to keep things in perspective. At the end of the day if you can get a good story out of it…it was worth it! And most good stories have another person in the same fight. The USF Sport Management Program is set up in a manner that allows students to have a balanced perspective of the sport industry. With the cohort system in place, students within the program have an ability to foster relationships on a weekly and even daily basis.

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to a good friend of mine. I feel like I’m recruiting him like John Calipari goes after the number-one recruit. We talk or text weekly and he is getting sick of me talking up the USF program. One of his big questions he had was, “how good of friends do you make in the program?” This is a valid question when you consider that most people in my cohort came to orientation without knowing a single person. Plus, it will be a long couple of years if you don’t have someone to give you a hard time when you screw up and pat you on the back when you get it done.

Even though my friend asked a good question, I laughed at him and told him that the surest ‘take it to Vegas’ guarantee I could give him was that he would be surrounded with motivated and like-minded people that had enough diversity and energy to push him to where he needs to get.

I call those people friends.

A couple of weeks ago the USF Sport Management family lost a part of the family I never got the chance to meet, when alum Alexis Busch passed away. Alexis was one of five crew members who died during a ‘Low Speed Chase’ sailboat accident. Their boat capsized during a race close to the Farallon Islands.

While most of my cohort never knew Alexis personally, it was a humbling reminder about the often over-looked aspect of being in the USF Sport Management Program. We are surrounded by great people everyday. Alexis had a wide range of passions, ranging from her experiences in the health and fitness industry, while also playing in two baseball leagues. Along with being the first bat girl in Major League Baseball history (with the Giants from 1999 to 2002), Alexis was the first person to greet Giants legend Barry Bonds at home plate following his 500^th home run.  From those who knew her within the sport industry and her friends in the USF Sport Management program, opinions on Alexis were universal: her energy and passion for baseball was a reflection of the way she lived all aspects of her life.    

So if you are attending, going to be attending, or thinking about attending the Sport Management Program, be very selfish….

When you get around someone, or a group of people who makes all your experiences in sport better, remember that the people you are with, not the games, make the memories.