Monday - High School, Tuesday - Undergrad, Wednesday - Post Grad Internship, Thursday - Grad School, Friday - May 09 - Now
Part One: Midwest Swing
Our story begins at Pleasant Valley High School in Bettendorf, Iowa - home of the Spartans. I was just a young kid tryin to deal with the social awkwardness and anxieties that every adolescent faces. Whether we admit it or not, starting high school is a big deal and it was no different for me. It didn't take long for me to adjust though and I found my routine almost instantly. The constant for me in those days has proven to be the same constant for me my entire life - sports.
I ran cross country, played basketball and sprinted in track all four years of high school. Growing up I participated in all kinds of sports including football, golf, floor and roller hockey, bowling, soccer - you name it, chances are I've tried it. It can be cliche, but sports really were my life. If I wasn't out playing a sport, odds were pretty good that I was watching one.
Some things never change either. When I was growing up, Saturdays meant one thing - Iowa football, which is still entirely too true today. This was near the end of Hayden Fry's run as head coach. I still rememeber vividly leaving for Iowa City first thing in the morning to tailgate. It was only an hour long drive, which seemed like a long time for a young fanatic anxious to see his Hawkeyes play. I can still hear the trumpet player behind us in the North Endzone of Kinnick Stadium playing his little tune that the marching band has now taken as if it were their own. I played trumpet in elementary school and that man is absolutley the reason why. I can still smell the free pork burgers on melrose and melrose. The taste of a cold Coca~Cola in an Iowa cup is still on my tongue. I can still see Tim Dwight racing along the sidelines for a touchdown while all of us in the stands celebrate. I lived and died Iowa football then, in fact, I still do. Iowa doesn't have any professional sports teams so for a state with the population the size of Iowa, the Hawkeye football program was it. Being in Iowa City was my first look at what big time athletics was like and even though I didn't know it at the time, it impacted my life in a way few things ever have.
I don't know if alot of people can pinpoint the exact moment they figured out what they want to do with their life but I can. I was playing my NCAA football 2k-something on dreamcast and I was in AD mode, which meant nothing to me other than it was a dynasty mode. After playing a while though, it finally clicked - some people actually have jobs where they run college athletics. Boom, done. The light turned on and everything clicked. I told my mother about my recent revelation and she must have thought it was a decent idea because she came home a few days later with a few books about jobs in sports. We flipped through the books to get an idea of what jobs were out there but nothing really jumped off the page in terms of an ideal job title. It wasn't long after the epiphany that I had to figure out what I wanted to do for our school's job shadow program. We were fortunate in that there was one administrator who's soul responsibility was to line up job shadowing opportunities for students. I came to her with my request. It consisted of one name and one name only. "I want to shadow Iowa Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby." I told her. I'm sure the request for a high profile athletic administrator was one of the very first she had received in that field. I was skeptical that she would have the ability to pull it off but to my surprise she did just that and one day in the spring my parents drove me to Iowa City in the morning to hang out with Bob Bowlsby for half a day and see just what it was to be an AD, at a Big Ten program no less. I was ecstatic.
I can probably point to this experience as the reason I chose to pursue a career in intercollegiate athletics. I met Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz and stood by as he, Bob, contractors, administrators and I all toured a potential site for a new training table for the football team. I received an in depth tour of Carver-Hawkeye arena where the basketball, wrestling and volleyball teams compete. I met then Iowa basketball head coach Steve Alford. For a young hawkeye fanatic, the trip was not only educational it was AWESOME!! Before our morning together concluded, Bob gave me the best professional advice I had ever received to date. It was incredibly simple and yet utterly essential if I wanted to get anywhere. "Get as much practical experience you can." He told me. I came home transcended. I had a new outlook and new drive. Frivilous things from my youth began to fall away and I started thinking about what I need to do to get to where Bob Bowlsby is. Also, Mr. Bowlsby was head of the NCAA Tournament selection committee in 2005 which is clearly the sweetest committee one can head.
So after seeing first hand how an AD spends their time I was focused on figuring out how to become one myself. I spent spring break of my Junior year traveling around the midwest to look at schools with a sport management program. When I say midwest, I really mean within a 3 hour radius from my house because mama put her foot down. I finally settled on Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois (3 hours away...) due to the Sport Management professor, Ivan Paul. He brought enthusiasm and a clear passion for his craft and it was contagious. The other schools couldn't compete with Ivan and as much as I always wanted to go to Iowa where I could submerge myself in Iowa athletics almost daily, I thought I would be far better suited to go to school for the education rather than the smoking hot women and kick ass tailgates...besides, U of Iowa was only a 2 hour ride away and yes, we made the trip a few times.
So I was set. I had chosen my college and my course of study before I was a senior. I began looking at sports in a whole new way and had one goal in mind - become Iowa's next Athletic Director. Hey, I can dream, can't I? Regardless, that dream will not be coming to fruition any time soon since Bowlsby left Iowa for Stanford in 2006 and was replaced by Iowa's current AD, Gary Barta and because I no longer want to be an AD which I'll explain in tomorrow's college segment. By the time my senior year ended, I was ready for a change and to start walking down the path I had chosen. In august of 2003, I took my first step.
Check back tomorrow for part two and while you're at it...tell a friend
No comments:
Post a Comment