I believe that I had the best possible experience I could have had. Brian has been nothing but kind and helpful over the course of my internship. I also believe that although I did have restless nights and countless days with no sleep, I would do it all if I got the opportunity. I feel so much in my element when I am completing tasks in athletics; I know that sports administration is what I what to do with my career and it feels good to know what I want to do. Now I just have to take Brian's advice and the knowledge I've learned to advance in my career. One thing I remember from the SPAD Speaker summit I attended was that we are supposed to find our niche and exploit it; sports information is my niche.
Earlier in my internship, Brian taught me how to use stat crew to keep baseball/softball statistics. Since things have slowed down now, Brian is now teaching me how to stat the other sports he school has (volleyball, basketball, and soccer). The school generally doesn't stat volleyball because it's so fast paced, assistant coaches usually keep their team stats and then exchange them at the end of the game.
I didn't learn basketball earlier in the year because there was so much going on and I came in towards the second half of the season. Other sports like golf and cross country and track & field don't use stat crew so there isn't much more to learn there. Brian took his time helping me understand the program for each sport and answered all of the questions I had to answer. Something exciting happened in the office today; every door in the athletics office got covered with player graphics. The athletics office is in a basement with no windows so the office space is pretty bland. With the added graphics, the office now has a pop of much needed color.
April 7 marked the NCAA's Division III week. I thought the department would do something big for DIII week since within the past five years the school made the decision to switch from the NAIA to the NCAA DIII. nothing was really planned but we asked players to help with a Why D3 campaign. Brian posted things on the athletics' social media accounts but noting bigger happened. The videos that he posted were of student-athletes who expressed why they chose to play athletics at a DIII school.
Others schools across the country, put together big programs that lasted a day or that lasted the entire week. Today at my internship we didn't do too much work because of the schools 42nd Annual Rat Race. Yes a Rat Race! It was literally one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Different clubs and teams (including the men's soccer and track & field teams) trained their rats for about 2 weeks and then raced them on a small track in a ballroom on campus. This year's theme was "The Wizard of Oz" and the students and faculty seemed to be really into it as they gave the rats names, like Courage Brave Heart, to fit into the theme; others dressed like characters out of the movie.
Before the rats even raced the school had a parade for them; a parade for rats. The students, faculty, and friends all paraded the rats around the neighborhood; it was really weird to me but everyone seemed to really enjoy it and it is the schools big spring event. .During my internship, Brain sent out a survey to over 60 DIII SIDs. The survey was to get a sense of how much help they have and what type of budget if any they had. The survey's results proved that of the 50+ only a few were women (which to me was a bit discouraging), and most SIDs relied on either volunteers or interns for help. Something else that we learned from the survey is that most SIDs have their own budget and don't have to go to their respective ADs every time they want something.
Spalding Athletics has been in rebranding mode since before I began my internship, but while I've been here they have had a very important meeting concerning the brands the players will where; essentially NIKE vs. Adidas.
Almost everyone had thier own opinion about why, but I think if the decision was just based on money the department would all chose Adidas; if it was based on comfort, style, and what the players wanted it would be NIKE. If they choose Adidas, the brand will provide jerseys and shoes for all teams but if they go with NIKE only apparel for basketball will be provided. On the other hand, NIKE would be the choice the student athletes would choose because some currently play in Adidas and they complain about the comfort and style. Both brands have big clients in the area, as the University of Louisville Athletics is a Adidas brand and the University of Kentucky wears NIKE. The department hasn't made a choice yet but when they do it won't be easy but no one wants to have a mix of brands. During one of the softball games, the lights that are used to light up the field kept going on and off so eventually the two teams decided to just call it a game. The thing is in order to be considered a game they would have had to play at least five innings for the stats to be kept; they only played 4. The umpires kept telling Brian just make the game 7-0 and keep all the statistics; what everyone seemed to not understand is that the stat program, Stat Crew, doesn't work that way; there was no way to just enter the score at 7-0 while keeping all of the same statistics.
What ended up happening was that Brian called the technical support at Stat Crew how to do it, and to his surprise they didn't know either. Brian and the tech support guy were eventually able to find a way to make the game 7-0 (the stats weren't kept though) so when he came in the next day he made it a teachable moment for myself and the other intern. He showed us step by step how to enter a forfeit at 7-0 if the two teams haven't played a full 5 innings. Usually if the game is stopped for any reason, the game goes back to the last full inning and whoever was winning at the end of the inning gets the win. The most important parts about an SIDs job is to keep stats and report on the games. A couple of times this season I will complete a write up of the game and a coach will tell Brian that something about the article was wrong. For example in one of the softball articles I wrote that a player had two home runs when the truth was she had three. Now the problem isn't with my writing it's with the stats. After being at so many basketball and softball/baseball games this season I know firsthand that the stats are not always right. There have been multiple times when the stats are wrong, (compared to the two teams stats that are kept on their sidelines or in their dugouts) so my write up has been wrong. When that happens the coaches will come to Brian and ask can stats be changed, this happens more often than not at away games, so Brian has to call or email the SID from SU's opponent and sometimes the SID is willing to change and sometimes they will stand by what they entered in and won't change them for any reason. There just is no continuity between the SIDs in the conference; some have a reputation for turning in stats almost 24 hrs after a game and others have a reputation of botched stats. I don't think any SID is necessarily bad, I just think they may need more help than they are getting.
Yesterday I got to attend the 2014 Sports Administration (SPAD ) Speaker Summit at the University of Louisville. The summit featured UofL alumni who are currently working in sports administration, local journalism talent, and ESPN's Jemele Hill.
The summit was very beneficial because the guests shared their experiences in the SPAD program as well as what it took for them to reach their career goals. Attending the SPAD Speaker Summit was not apart of a typical day in the athletics department but it was a great networking tool and it showed that Brian cared enough about his interns to expose us to some of the best in the industry. After the event, I returned to Spalding to help assist with the setup of the SLIAC Basketball Tournament. I assisted with the setup of the scorers table, which is were I would be spending the rest of my night. Both Spalding's men's and women's basketball team earned the right to host their respective tournaments, which means that the athletics department was in store for a long weekend. I covered every game for Spalding during the championship and today in was working in the capacity of an intern from 9:00 a.m. To 11:00 p.m. It was a very VERY long day, and although I was tired, I feel that sports information/ sports administration is exactly where I want my career to go. |