Internships and Capstone...surprise, surprise!

I had a variety of ideas flowing through my head this week, so bear with me on this one. This past week was quite busy, between the massive amount of work I had in my classes and trying to finalize my project idea for Capstone. However, I pushed all of that to the side on Wednesday when three of the seven places I applied to for internships contacted me, requesting interviews. At first, it was an extremely overwhelming feeling. Trying to figure out my schedule with two tests looming in the next two weeks was a task in and of itself. Then, I actually took a minute to think that there was no reason for me to feel overwhelmed. In fact, I should have been overjoyed from the beginning to be past one of the waiting phases: receiving a response. The best news, two out of the three places that contacted me are the top two places I would love to intern. I scheduled interviews for all three places (all in Pittsburgh) and am anxiously preparing for them. I’ve been working closely with the career center since last semester and now it will come full circle with a mock interview coming up on Friday. My fellow classmate/friend Doug Kunst noted in his blog last week that the interview that career center gave was extremely challenging. So much so that it was actually much more difficult than his actual interview for an internship he is pursuing. In a way, I think I will enjoy a challenge before the real deal. It will probably put me much more at ease for when I enter the actual interview. Many of the interviews are for marketing and advertising departments of these companies, which couldn’t be anymore perfect. One actually deals with sports marketing, advertising and media relations, making it ideal for what I am looking to pursue.
The other thing running through my head this week, before the internship interviews, was the topic of my senior capstone project. We took class time in Capstone last week to brainstorm about potential ideas and this week we took time to discuss some more options and what would actually go into our senior project. I began to put more thought into my very vague (and that’s being nice about it) idea for my own Capstone project. After much consideration and though, I’ve narrowed it down to working with the athletic department here at Westminster and trying to promote the college’s sports through a series of posters and other graphics or working in conjunction with development department of my alma mater in order to appeal to many students in the area (my alma mater is a private high school), while still working with the current students on ways we can better the school as a whole. It also crossed my mind to possibly check into doing this for Westminster, since transportation may become an issue for getting back and forth to and from Pittsburgh. In both instances, no matter which one, I would still use posters, flyers, and other tactics of advertising to put its name out there more than it already is. I’m still testing the waters to see if anything else in the field of marketing/advertising develops, but for now I will continue to plan on developing these two ideas into a compromise or “all in one” project. It will certainly be exciting once everyone has selected a topic of interest. I enjoy the discussion in Capstone and have been relieved that many others are still pushing around a variety of ideas on what they could possibly do. In my case, I’m looking for this to be a shining example of what I have done in the Broadcast Department here at Westminster. For now, it’s a slow moving process, but I know in about a month time will start to fly, so that’s why I keep the ideas flying through my head at all times. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to projects and other school work, so, needless to say, this is something that I am going to keep considering and brainstorming about until I have the perfect idea in place. This project and my continuing internship search are two things that I can’t make major mistakes on. I guess the pressure, so to speak, is on me to make my interviews and every component of my Capstone shine through. Until next time…

Broacasting: It's everywhere I go

I beginning to think I’m on the brink of a revelation as far as career options are concerned. After my blog regarding academics versus athletics in our nation’s schools I’m feeling more motivated to pursue a career in athletic directing or perhaps development at a college or high school. It’s taken me this long to realize that my calling in the professional world doesn’t necessarily involve broadcasting on the surface, but if you look beneath the outside description you can find the many ways broadcasting will play into these two types of careers. Athletic directing and development require daily interaction with the public. You need to know how to communicate adequately and properly with your peers and others you are doing business with. As silly as it seems, reading the news on air for Titan Radio or The County Line here at Westminster has forced me to speak more carefully and with better diction, thus training me for sounding professional upon entering an interview or job/internship setting. I truly believe that speaking properly is in the top three most important tools when you are in an interview or gaining a job. If you’re going around the office Monday morning “hollerin’ ‘bout how dem Stillers beat dem jagoffs from Cleveland again, ‘n at”, you’re clearly not going to be taken seriously, at all. Luckily, though I never have spoken like this before in my life, I have erased much of my Pittsburgh accent that I arrived here with. Though I do have minor slips with the words “slippy”, “gumband”, and “pop”, I feel that for the most part I’m a pretty professional speaker, capable of thriving in a work environment that requires constant communication.
Broadcast writing has prepared me for the world of athletic directing and/or development. This may seem strange, but writing concisely and with descriptive, but not over-the-top, sentences are imperative in the professional world. This, coupled with learning how to write a press release in last semester’s public relations course, is something needed at an athletic directing and/or development job. Athletic directors are responsible for many things, including dispatching scores of games to the local media outlets, contacting other athletic directors regarding games or other matters of business, and sending out newsletters or forms to parents. All these job assignments listed above require some form of concise writing. Media affiliates don’t want to read through endless sentences of play-by-play descriptions of the game. They want to know: final score, score after each quarter, leading two scorers from both teams, and any other vital information about the game (i.e. the leading scorer was out with the flu and was not playing). To do that in today’s world of technology, you text or email the media outlet. More and more TV stations and newspapers are relying less on phone calls after games from athletic directors. You have to be to the point about a game recap or you’re going to make the people publishing the story pretty unhappy. You also won’t win fans or praise if you send out long and over exaggerated newsletters or forms to parents of children in the district. This, too, must be short and easily readable. Whether it’s the athletic director sending the yearly reminder regarding sportsmanship at athletic events or the development director notifying the parents of an upcoming project at the school, these notices must be explanatory, but not overdone. Parents are busy and, at times, may only read over the first few lines of a letter. Make your point in the first few sentences to get their attention and then you have a much better chance of them reading the rest.
There are many other ways broadcasting will help me when I embark on one of these careers. Media management, a BC elective I took last spring, taught me the value of using the media as an aide for promoting a particular event or happening. Broadcast Journalism gave me a broad perspective of how to use certain media elements. It could prove important someday if the school needs someone to be interviewed by a local media outlet. Going into the interview, I can safely say that I would know what types of questions would be asked and how I can answer them. In the worst case scenario, I could do some major damage control if the school district I am working for gets them into some trouble. It’s good to know the ins and outs of the media. Building relationships with the media is a must. It’s their business to know you and what’s going on with your program, so should you make it your business to know them and how they’re going about that.
There are so many more aspects of broadcasting that could potentially play out in either of these careers. However, there are so many that it would take far too long to list them all out on this blog. The ones listed above are the most vital ones to those careers. I never thought I’d say this, but broadcasting really does play into these careers more than I ever thought it would. The benefits of the major are endless and, hopefully, they will help me when I go to land that big job someday. For now, I’ll just keep it concise by saying that broadcasting, as a whole, has more than prepared me to speak, write, and overall communicate extraordinarily for whatever future career I decide to undertake.

Academics vs. Athletics...You make the call

I’m switching gears a little this week. Today’s entry isn’t going to be about whether I’m still stressing over internship deadlines (which I am) or anything broadcast related. This entry is being written to focus on the importance of education versus the importance of athletics. As someone who may pursue the career of being an athletic director, I am constantly paying attention to the latest high school and college athletics. For me, it’s an important thing to research.
It’s far too often in this day and age that we witness young men and women pursue athletic opportunities over academic ones. I know this is a hot button issue that is heavily debated at all levels (middle school, high school, and college); nevertheless it’s a topic that continues to spread through school systems across the nation. You can argue whatever side you want, but the bottom line is there are some wrongs being committed by student-athletes, their parents, school boards, athletic directors, athletic district committees, coaches, and school administrators. These wrongs can range from letting a gifted athlete play in a pivotal game when they didn’t make the grades required by the school to transferring for the sole purpose of playing for a better or more highly recruited team.
Just as in any system, there are more than a handful of flaws in school athletics. Differences vary depending on the school or district. Usually, schools with winning traditions in certain sports tend to have the most problems and run into the most trouble. In the athletic district where I competed in high school athletics, issues regarding transfers for athletic intent, excessive college recruiting, and students not performing in the classroom as they should have been were rampant. At times, the district committee would review cases of such things, mainly transfer issues, and, in most cases, would rule the player ineligible if there was even the slightest trace of athletic intent involved. However, being frustrated with the outcome, the player and his/her parents would proceed to the state level and petition to them for clearance to participate. Nine times out of ten, the state athletic committee would grant the player eligibility. Stupid? Yes. Wrong? Absolutely.
Families are uprooting their lives so their child can play at the championship winning school or the school where all the college recruiters go. Granted, there are some families of low income who rely on their child to obtain an athletic scholarship for the sole purpose of attending college. This I understand completely, but out of all the cases I have read in local newspapers, more often than not the athlete transferring is only going there to win a championship or be looked at by more recruiters than at their previous school. Most are from affluent, well-to-do families. This is a trend that must stop. If I ever enter the world of athletic directing, I will more than make sure that the coaches in the district know my policy on academics versus athletics: academics always come in first. I will make sure students-athletes' grades are checked every single week in order to ensure good performance, not just on the playing field, but ultimately in the classroom. Few high school athletes can bank on ever making it to the pros, so it only makes sense that they place their education first, being that is the thing that will get them to a quality college and earn them a career someday.
Most state athletic boards have established rules for academic eligibility for student-athletes. Taking that a step further, most school districts have implemented systems of checking on a student’s grades if they participate in extracurricular activities on a weekly basis, which is wonderful. Many times this system keeps students working to their full potential, so they are able to participate; however, many other times these systems fail, because leeway is given by a teacher, administrator, or coach. What does this prove? It proves that, not only did this student not fulfill the academic requirements demanded of them and received a poor grade, but also they now know that they can get away with this again in the future, causing them to, perhaps, not study as much or turn in incomplete homework. It’s a vicious cycle. Letting a student, who is performing poorly in school, play in the big rival game that night instead of teaching them a lesson by having them sit the bench, or, even better yet, not allowing them to attend the game in hopes that they brush up on their studies, is senseless. It may benefit the team in the short term, but it certainly will not help the student in the long term.
The other issue worthy of addressing is the over exaggerated, drawn out, excessive recruiting and signing process once a highly talented student-athlete is spotted. Recently, a top-notch high school football quarterback named Terrelle Pryor has made his mark in high school football and basketball becoming one of the best athletes to come out of Western Pennsylvania. Local and national media outlets have been covering Pryor rise for around two years now and deservedly so. Pryor and the Jeannette High School football team won the district title two years in a row and the state title this past December. Pryor, himself, became the first athlete in Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) and Pennsylvania state history to rush for over 4,000 career yards and pass for over 4,000 career yards in football and score more than 2,000 points in basketball. There is no doubt that he is a tremendous athlete. The only problem with this picture is the intense pressure he is under to make a college choice.
It has been reported that Pryor has recently been receiving hundreds of text messages per day about his college decision. He also has been making many final visits to the colleges he likes the most, while still carrying a full course load at Jeannette and playing basketball everyday of the week. All of this, and Pryor is barely 18. Just today, Pryor was scheduled to make his college decision live on ESPN-U and other television stations. Yes, you read correctly: live and on television. Despite it being the first day a student-athlete can sign a binding national letter of intent, Pryor did not make a decision, but held the television press conference for the throng of media outlets anyway. It’s the most extreme form of informing the public of a high school athlete’s decision on where they will play at college. This leads me to ask the question: Is this necessary in high school athletics? I tend to think no. However, society tends to disagree. Many people would rather tune in to see where a star athlete is headed to college, rather than watch a presidential debate on issues that will directly affect them. Watching athletes do this sort of thing has become the norm. Standards have changed. You don’t see people reading up on the student with the 4.0 headed to a top notch college to study Biochemistry and Physics, who could potentially develop the cure cancer someday. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about being the blue chip athlete or the extremely intelligent student. In many cases, both are the same person. The thing is, people should try to not get so caught up in the whole parade of blossoming athletes. Yes, it’s fun to watch your favorite player compete on game day, but do you really need to plop down in front of the T.V. and watch them make their decision live on their air? No. People need to take time to understand that sports, while fun and entertaining are just a game. Life and education are the real deal. Kids today need an education to succeed in life, unless they’re a part of the miniscule number of athletes that will make it to the pros. There’s no crime in doing both, they just need to know the limits. Students-athletes need to make sure the hustle they show on the playing field is equal to the hustle they show in the classroom.

Reference links for this blog:
Transferring: For the good of the student or for the good of the athlete?

Terrelle Pryor's televised press conference

Academic rules and other requirements stated by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) for student athletes