Thursday, July 28th - Day 37 - Reflecting on a Summer in Collegiate Athletics
Wednesday, July 27th - Day 36 - Football Locker Room Prep with Skip
Today was a short 2.5 hour afternoon shift working with Skip. I arrived on campus and was told to meet under the stadium. Skip was preparing the football locker room for an upcoming recruiting visit, so I joined him. First, we put away the remaining shoulder pads that were left out from the recent Freshmen fittings. Next, we were cleaning and polishing the lockers red metal lockers. We specifically focused on the foot locker portions, as that where all the dirt, mud, and scratches seemed to primarily collect. Using just a cleaning agent spray bottle and a few old towels, we were scooting along the floors, scrubbing the lockers one at a time. This was rather time-consuming, but we were able to eventually finish all 100+ lockers. We shared stories and also shared back aches by the end. Lastly, we put out helmets and hung up game jerseys in the lockers to make the room look complete. Once we were done, the locker room looked much cleaner and neater, sure to impress any prospective future member of the Otterbein Football Program. I was on my way off campus soon after 4pm.
Tuesday, July 19th - Day 35 - Closing Long Jump for the Season & Softball Field Tear-Down Pt. 2
Today Dawn directed me down to Skip, as she was busy and had nothing for me in the office. I found him in his office just a bit after noon. Today we would be out and about in the sun, doing some work around the fields. First, we went into the gates of the football stadium and grabbed 4 long metal rods out of a storage room (I had no clue what they were for) and a pair of rakes. We then walked out to the track. He informed me we would be closing up the two sand pits used for long jump for the season. First, we had to clear out and rocks, wrappers, grass, or unwanted debris from the pits. Then we used the rakes to flatten out the lumps and sift through the sand to make smooth. The sand was overflowing in some areas, so that's where the most attention was needed. Once we had it looking nice and neat, we set the rakes down and grabbed the rods, one in each hand. These were used to pick up and transport the large rubber-topped, rectangular covers. These were extremely heavy and cumbersome. You had to be very delicate with them so they fit just right. There were five covers per pit. You could tell the few areas where we hadn't smoothed the sand mounds quite enough, as the covers would not press down all the way. Once we were finally done with the first pit, we moved down to the other one and started the process again. Today was a hot one, so once we finished both and put the supplies away, we retreated to his office for a quick recovery and ice water break.
For the next part of our day, we went out to the softball field to continue the final steps of closing it down for the season. Not long ago, we had removed the signs, banners, and advertisements from the outfield fence, but now it was time to remove the wind/shade covers from the fence. These are the long, green tarps attached to the fence with a seemingly endless amount of zip ties. Each armed with a pair of scissors, we started the tedious process of cutting each zip tie one by one. There had to have been over 200 of them along the top and bottom of the fences. It wasn't hard work, but it was a lot of bending over and the beating sun didn't help anything. Another fun aspect of this was running into three separate hornets nests situated right in the outfield fencing. This slowed things up as we had to delicately work around them at risk of disturbing them and dealing with the ensuing chaos. By the end my pockets were bursting with cut up zip ties. Once we had them all removed, we rolled up the green tarps, then came by on a Gator to pick them all up. Once all of them were delivered to the storage shed and the Gator parked back in the garage, we were done for the day.
For the next part of our day, we went out to the softball field to continue the final steps of closing it down for the season. Not long ago, we had removed the signs, banners, and advertisements from the outfield fence, but now it was time to remove the wind/shade covers from the fence. These are the long, green tarps attached to the fence with a seemingly endless amount of zip ties. Each armed with a pair of scissors, we started the tedious process of cutting each zip tie one by one. There had to have been over 200 of them along the top and bottom of the fences. It wasn't hard work, but it was a lot of bending over and the beating sun didn't help anything. Another fun aspect of this was running into three separate hornets nests situated right in the outfield fencing. This slowed things up as we had to delicately work around them at risk of disturbing them and dealing with the ensuing chaos. By the end my pockets were bursting with cut up zip ties. Once we had them all removed, we rolled up the green tarps, then came by on a Gator to pick them all up. Once all of them were delivered to the storage shed and the Gator parked back in the garage, we were done for the day.
Monday, July 18th - Day 34 - Updating Work Study Figures
Today I got to the office at noon and reported Diane for instruction. She had me organize and put away a big pile of documents and folders from 2014-2015 that she'd been using. After the filing was done, I had a box of papers to shred from Dawn's office. In my infinite wisdom, got impatient with the process and ended up jamming the shredded by using too many papers at once. In the process of trying to clear the shredding teeth, I knocked over the garbage bin and made a heck of a mess in the office. I don't know if I spent more time cleaning up my mess or actually just shredding documents. Anyways, after that mess was over I went back to my desk and replied to a few emails. I was glad to see that BMI Federal Credit Union had finished their program ad. I responded to them, thanking and complimenting them on how good it looks. I then forwarded the ad along to Dawn and Adam. I put a big, bold disclaimer, reminding them that this was just for the Fall sports program. Most of our sponsors are included in both programs, but this was one of the few that chose a sponsor level warranting just one program ad. Then, as I was working at my Desk, Diane came by and pulled a typewriter out from seemingly nowhere. I didn't even know exactly what it was at first to be completely honest. She seemed amused by the fact I'd never used a typewriter before, so she was showing me everything about it even though I wasn't originally included in this duty. Apparently the typewriter was only used on certain occasions, specifically for any purchase orders and to make the Parent Pass List at home athletic event. Today she was using it for a new equipment purchase order for Baseball. Next, I added March, April, and May notes and figures to the Work Study documents. Dawn mentioned the importance of these, so once they were completed I fired them immediately over to Stephani Schmidt. Once this was done, my tasks in the office for today were complete. A little after 4pm I headed down to the stadium to meet Skip. For about 2 hours I worked with Skip in the football equipment room, going through the new shipment of boxes that had just arrived for the football team. It was (who knows how many) boxes of brand new cleats from Nike. In all, it was nearly 80 pairs of cleats for the upcoming season. We already had a handful of maybe 30-40 cleats unused from last season, so with that we should be able to outfit the entire team. We basically just sorted them into style (low cut, high top, linemen) and size. Then we took an inventory of all cleats we had, including the new shipment and what was already left over. Once we had our itemized list, we packed the boxes back up and did our best to find shelving and any other space possible to keep them for a few weeks until the team started preseason camp. Around 6pm I was released for the day.
Thursday, July 14th - Day 33 - The Otterbein Athletics Organizational Chart
Today, I got to the office around noon and hunkered down for what would be one of my longer shifts. First, I took notes from a voicemail that was left at the front desk. I left those notes on Dawn's desk since she was out today. Next, per Dawn's instruction, I made 50 stapled copy packets of the 16/17 Greek Life Calendar. I then was looking up the NCAA Rules Book for Dawn. However they did not have the 2016/2017 version posted yet, so I forwarded her a hyperlink to the most recent one I could find. Lastly, came the brunt of my day.
Dawn asked that I make a complete organizational chart of the Otterbein Athletics, encompassing all staff, coaches, graduate assistants, trainers, and other faculty. This, I knew, was a large undertaking. Dawn said this was an objective she'd been meaning to get to for awhile, but always got put on the back burner. There was no complete organizational chart established to this point. I was happy to take this on, as anything with organization and attention to detail is my specialty. Also, I was excited to create something from scratch and tackle a project all my own. You can see the completed org chart below. It took me all afternoon and early evening to complete. It took so long because there was no template or partially-begun database to go off of. I had to research the names and positions of all athletic staff, looking at so many different pages and websites to get the most updated info. I stayed way late in the office, until 7pm, because I was just so determined to get it done. I enjoyed the challenge and I think Dawn will be pretty pleased when she sees this! Hopefully going forward Otterbein will be able to use this document for reference and easily make changes whenever there are replacements or new hires within the athletic department.
Dawn asked that I make a complete organizational chart of the Otterbein Athletics, encompassing all staff, coaches, graduate assistants, trainers, and other faculty. This, I knew, was a large undertaking. Dawn said this was an objective she'd been meaning to get to for awhile, but always got put on the back burner. There was no complete organizational chart established to this point. I was happy to take this on, as anything with organization and attention to detail is my specialty. Also, I was excited to create something from scratch and tackle a project all my own. You can see the completed org chart below. It took me all afternoon and early evening to complete. It took so long because there was no template or partially-begun database to go off of. I had to research the names and positions of all athletic staff, looking at so many different pages and websites to get the most updated info. I stayed way late in the office, until 7pm, because I was just so determined to get it done. I enjoyed the challenge and I think Dawn will be pretty pleased when she sees this! Hopefully going forward Otterbein will be able to use this document for reference and easily make changes whenever there are replacements or new hires within the athletic department.
Wednesday, July 13th - Day 32 - Editing/Filing/Copying/Scanning/Delivering
Today was another day in the office, this one a 3.5 hour shift. Again, Dawn was out and about at meetings around campus so she left me a note with what I was to work on. First, she had me scan and make 50 copies of the NCAA front & back recruiting information sheet. This had facts and figures from 2014 about topics such as:
sheet was another document to be included in the freshmen orientation packets for incoming student-athletes, which I've mentioned a few times before. Next, I made 3 copies of a Financial Aid Requirements sheet, and set those down in her office as well. I also finished labeling a few manila file folders I forgot about yesterday. I also was able to take care of a few email de-cluttering today. Leah sent me the finalized 2016 First Flight schedule, so I was able to make 50 copies of the packet that she'd requested from yesterday. Lastly, Beth from City BBQ got back to me with the updated, landscape-oriented, half-page advertisement for the upcoming Fall & Winter programs. Last week she'd sent over a completed ad, but it was portrait-sized, and would have had to been shrunk dramatically to fit in the ad space they'd purchased with their corporate sponsorship package. This one fit perfectly in the space. So I thanked Beth for her work and then forwarded it along to Dawn and Adam. Then, I had to leave by 3pm for my RHS football evening summer camp session. |
Tuesday, July 12th - Day 31 - Finalizing the "First Flight" Schedule for Fall, 2016
Today I was in for a short 3-hour afternoon shift after my football workout. I was in the office today, and arrived to a pile of things on my desk to work on. Dawn left me a checklist of six fairly small-scale tasks to complete before the end of the day, and also told me to check in with Diane. The to-do list is as follows:
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To the right, you can see one of the pages of the welcome packets I had to make copies of. This was a packet given out to students and families of incoming Freshmen, visiting campus for their summer orientation. Specifically, this was a packet for student-athletes and gave information regarding Otterbein Cardinals news.
When all was said and done, I was able to complete five of the six tasks before heading out for the day. The only reason I was not able to complete my 50 First Flight packets was because I had not yet received an email from Leah with the finalized schedule. Hopefully we will hear back from her tomorrow so we can finish the welcome package folders for the incoming student-athletes and next wave of Cardinals. I had to bolt out of the office shortly after 4pm to get to my 5pm coaches meeting at Reynoldsburg High School. |
Monday, July 11th - Day 30 - Formatting Job Description Files
Today my shift was just over 4 hours. When I first came into the office there was a voicemail message waiting for me. It was an Otterbein soccer player asking about the physical form. I contacted the athletic trainer in order to best answer his question. I then had a quick chat with Dawn to get back up to speed on what's up around the office and what I'd be doing today. We made sure we were on the same page regarding sponsorship updates and who we still need materials from. I emailed her my excel file I've been using to log dates and information for each of the sponsors. I got my rough to-do list for the day and went back to my desk to get to work.
In preparations for Dawn's upcoming maternity leave in a few weeks, she decided to make a sort of "cheat sheet" for our Sports Information Director, Adam Prescott. He is in charge of putting together and overseeing the pocket schedules, team posters, game day programs, radio ads, and PA announcements. So since Dawn won't be in the office once August rolls around, she had me compile this list of sponsors, broken down by advertisement category. Each section title lists which companies have an ad included in that specific category. Below, you can see the document I put together. (Note: this document looks much cleaner when I open it in Word. For some reason Weebly added in the messy bullets when I transferred it to this site)
In preparations for Dawn's upcoming maternity leave in a few weeks, she decided to make a sort of "cheat sheet" for our Sports Information Director, Adam Prescott. He is in charge of putting together and overseeing the pocket schedules, team posters, game day programs, radio ads, and PA announcements. So since Dawn won't be in the office once August rolls around, she had me compile this list of sponsors, broken down by advertisement category. Each section title lists which companies have an ad included in that specific category. Below, you can see the document I put together. (Note: this document looks much cleaner when I open it in Word. For some reason Weebly added in the messy bullets when I transferred it to this site)
Next, I moved to my main project for the day: to update/edit/reformat the Head Coach Job Descriptions for Otterbein Athletics. This is not for an upcoming job opening, but rather just an administrative task to make sure each job post is up-to-date, accurate, professional, and matching the format and style of all the others. So I had to go through and check for misspellings, formatting errors, inaccurate data, and other discrepancies. This actually took multiple hours because of the detail involved and the fact I had to do it for so many sports. I had some questions along the way for Dawn and Diane, but I eventually got done. I made sure each document has the same heading, same margins, same font, same formatting, same language...etc. Below is an example of one of the documents, this one being the Head Wrestling Coach job description.
Throughout the day I answered a few phone calls and greeted a few athletes and their families as they came in to meet with a coach. My last task of the day was to package and address a gift pack from Dawn. Once I got the box ready, I walked it down to Towers Hall to the campus mail center. I had them postmark it, charge the bill to the Athletic Department, and then once I got back to the office to get my stuff the day was done!
Friday, July 8th - Day 29 - Preparing for Football Fittings
Today was a Skip day. I got to campus this afternoon and went directly to the stadium to meet Skip. The big project today was to fit incoming Freshmen football players into their proper helmets and shoulder pads, but that wasn't until later in the day. Skip and I emptied helmet boxes and sorted them into their size and style, laying them out around the locker room. We did the same for the shoulder pads. With that, we were ready for players to arrive later on.
So then I went through the equipment room and inventoried all lacrosse long sleeve 'shooting shirts' (worn during pregame and scrimmages). You can see a picture of the shooting shirts over to the left. This didn't take more than 20 minutes, then my attention was turned to football game pants.
Skip had me go through all cardinal home game pants and gold away game pants. I sorted them by size, took a tally of how many we had in each size, then wrapped them together with tape and packed them back away. This was a little bit of a task, when you consider there were 120-140 pairs of pants in each color. Below, you can see a picture of the equipment room with the red game pants being sorted. I emptied them out on the table and then tossed them into cubbies below based on size. Not until they were all sorted did I take a count of them. Skip seemed to enjoy the fact that he had me there to take all of his equipment inventory the past few weeks.
So then I went through the equipment room and inventoried all lacrosse long sleeve 'shooting shirts' (worn during pregame and scrimmages). You can see a picture of the shooting shirts over to the left. This didn't take more than 20 minutes, then my attention was turned to football game pants.
Skip had me go through all cardinal home game pants and gold away game pants. I sorted them by size, took a tally of how many we had in each size, then wrapped them together with tape and packed them back away. This was a little bit of a task, when you consider there were 120-140 pairs of pants in each color. Below, you can see a picture of the equipment room with the red game pants being sorted. I emptied them out on the table and then tossed them into cubbies below based on size. Not until they were all sorted did I take a count of them. Skip seemed to enjoy the fact that he had me there to take all of his equipment inventory the past few weeks.
I then started sorting through the pile of laundry pins used to hang up clean socks, pants, and jerseys. Each set of pins had a number scribbled on it in sharpie corresponding to the locker number it goes in. This is not necessarily their jersey number, as we have nearly 140 lockers and sets of laundry pins. Each player gets 3 laundry pins, so we have a couple hundred of these pins to go through in preparations for the upcoming season. So I dumped them all out and put them in their correct cubby. Any pins with faded numbers I reapplied with a permanent marker. This actually is pretty time-consuming and I didn't get done before the players started arriving.
By 5pm football players started arriving, so Skip, Elisabeth, and I jumped to action (Elisabeth was an Otterbein student and assistant trainer for the football team). Anyways, Skip and I took players, fitting them in the proper size and style helmet and shoulder pad, then they would go to Elisabeth at the table, who would log what we assigned them. She also took their name, height, weight, and handed them the spirit pack order form. We were a machine, getting through nearly 30 players in a little over an hour. Once the last player and parent rolled through, we packed up what was left of the helmets into boxes. We kept the shoulder pads out, per Skip's instruction. I was out of there a little before 7pm, ready for the weekend.
Wednesday, July 6th - Day 28 - Adding to the Corporate Sponsorship Spreadsheet
Today I came to work knowing I'd be in the athletic offices all day. It ended up being a near 6-hour shift and it was nice to be out of the heat actually. Dawn and I had a discussion at the beginning of my shift about a list of different to-do items. First, I reconnected with Sunny Street Cafe since we had not heard from them in a while. Next, I got ahold of Truly Nolan Pest Control, a company that had worked with Otterbein in the past, but had not committed to sponsoring for the upcoming school year until just yesterday. I emailed them their ad from last year and asked if they'd be using a new one or would like to make any changes. I also had to ask for an edit from City BBQ. They had a half-page ad, but sent us a portrait-style pdf. I gave them the exact dimensions needed for the landscape-sized ad space. Then, Dawn tasked me to find any information, pages, or documents related to the NCAA GOALS Study. She also noted that it's a bonus if I found anything relating to Division III specifically. I did that by going to the NCAA website, clicking MY APPS, then logging in with Dawn's information. Just below is my email to Dawn from this afternoon, giving hyperlinks to everything I could find.
After lunch, I continued at the front desk. First, I got a set of notebooks containing OAC meeting documents, forms, and manuals from Dawn. I was to go through them and organize anything that was out of order or sitting loose. Some notebooks were pretty much right and others were a complete mess. I had to make sure all meeting notes were chronologically in order. These 3-ring notebooks dated from 1999-2015. Once that was done, I got to officially add the following companies to our corporate sponsorship spreadsheet: Truly Nolan Pest Control, Sunny Street Cafe, Buca di Beppo, and BMI Federal Credit Union. Lastly, I went over the database of Otterbein team accolades I'd made when she was gone in Dallas. This was a project she'd been meaning to do for a few years now that kept getting pushed back. Below, you can see a screenshot of what the excel spreadsheet looked like. It covered every team sport Otterbein offers and dated back over 70 years. It details any of the following:
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Friday, July 1st - Day 27 - Advertisements in the Outfield
Today was a short two and a half hour shift. For the first hour or so, I was in the office catching up on emails and updating my corporate sponsorship notes and log. At this point, we have received all sponsor materials from MSA Architects, Roush Honda, OhioHealth, Education First Credit Union, and Rusty Bucket. However we are still waiting on something or another from City Barbeque, Jet's Pizza, Nationwide Hotel & Conference Center, and Uptown Hair Design. We are also still waiting to hear back from Jessica with Marriott on whether or not they will be going forward with creating a new partnership for the upcoming school year.
After leaving the office, I went to work with Skip. I met him in the Rike and we headed out to the baseball and softball fields. We collected trash around the fields, stands, and in the dugout. Then he had to leave for a meeting. He directed me on the next task and I got going. I took down all of the banners, advertisements, and yardage signs hanging on the softball outfield fence. This took longer than you might expect, because the large ad banners each had over 35 zip ties to keep them in place. Once all zip ties were cut, I could nicely roll up each banner. These banners are stored in a shed just behind the first base side of the stadium.
Tuesday, June 28th - Day 26 - Campus Corporate Sponsorship Network Meeting #2
Today started off with the next chapter in the developing of Otterbein's campus-wide corporate sponsorship network. We met, again in Roush Hall, for the second Otterbein Corporate Sponsorship Network meeting. I again took the meeting minutes and notes, which you can see completed below. Around 11am, Dawn had to leave early for another engagement on campus, but I stayed throughout. Becky is the leader of this campus network initiative and she led the meeting along. After its conclusion, Becky stayed with me as I had some gaps in the notes and wanted to clear everything up. She also had three questions for me to ask Dawn later, before I sent out the finalized notes to everyone. Below are those questions I jotted down, with Dawn's responses I acquired later in the day.
- Is the City BBQ discount still accurate? -Yes
- For restaurant and hotel discounts, can these be easily passed along to other departments within the university? -For hotels, yes. For restaurants, the patrons would need a valid OCID (the id used by all Otterbein students, staff, and faculty)
- How did Dawn come up with the offering values on the spreadsheet? -Will talk about at next meeting when she's there
Around noon I returned to the front desk in the 2nd floor of the Clements Rec Center. I got on my computer to see OhioHealth had now finished there full page, color ad for the upcoming Fall & Winter sports programs. To the right, you can see the full advertisement. I then of course notified Dawn and forwarded it along to Adam. I thanked Martina with OhioHealth for all her hard work.
I sent another few emails and made sure Kathy and Diane didn't need me for anything. Once I'd talked to Dawn and fired off the meeting notes, as I mentioned earlier, I headed down to see what Skip was doing. I joined him for the last hour or so, as we did some cleaning around the baseball and softball fields. We emptied a bunch of nearly overfull garbage cans. There was a youth baseball camp going on that week causing this need. We then washed and hosed down all the garbage cans, as some of them had become fairly rank from the litter and the recent rain. |
Monday, June 27th - Day 25 - Lacrosse Laundry Day
Today was a short, 3-hour afternoon shift, again due to my morning football coaching duties. I showed up to the office, but Dawn wasn't in at the moment. However, I did get to send a few emails. Roush Honda had sent in their full-page color advertisement for both the Fall and Winter sports programs. To the left, you can see this finished ad. It was great to see they were done, as deadlines were approaching and many of our sponsors have still not finished their program ads. Once I saw this, I immediately emailed Beth, thanking her for her work and open communication in this process. I then also forwarded the ad along to Dawn and Adam Prescott. Another check mark off the corporate sponsorship materials checklist!
There was nothing left for me in the office, so once that was done, I headed to the stadium to work with Skip. |
He greeted me and we went into the equipment room. We chatted and then he explained my tasks for the afternoon.
- To organize all of the home cardinal and away white, recently laundered, hanging lacrosse game jerseys in numerical order
- Take an inventory of the sizes, number, and quantity of those game jerseys
- Go through all of the recently laundered cardinal and white practice jerseys, folding them and inventorying their sizes and numbers
- Inventory all of the clean practice sweat pants and hoodies, organizing them by number
- Match each sweat pant and hoodie set, hanging them together
Thursday, June 23rd - Day 24 - Parent Welcoming and Orientation
I got to campus around 1pm this afternoon since I had morning workouts with RHS Football. When I arrived, Dawn was on the phone so I got myself settled in at the front desk. I sent a few emails about City BBQ, one to them about the upcoming 7/1 deadline for the Fall sports program ad and if they'd need an extension, the other to Adam Prescott (Sports Information Director) about the newly updated City BBQ logo. To the right, you'll see this new logo.
Dawn stopped by to see how I was doing today. She handed me a hand-written sheet with some figures and other things crossed out or edited. She wanted me to consolidate it into one nice spreadsheet that was clean and easy to read. This sheet was a breakdown of various offerings we include in our base corporate sponsorship packages. Below, you can see my finished document.
Dawn stopped by to see how I was doing today. She handed me a hand-written sheet with some figures and other things crossed out or edited. She wanted me to consolidate it into one nice spreadsheet that was clean and easy to read. This sheet was a breakdown of various offerings we include in our base corporate sponsorship packages. Below, you can see my finished document.
In column B, you can see a description of the offering. In the left column, you'll see in which level that offering is included. And to the right, you can see our estimated value to the partner. This is the basic foundation for the document the athletic department will use in pricing and analyzing corporate sponsorship levels.
Once I was done with this, Dawn and I headed to the Battlle Fine Arts Building. She was giving a presentation to the parents of incoming Freshmen athletes on what it means to be a student-athlete at Otterbein. She would be presenting, and I was her assistant, passing out flyers, surveys, pencils, and other documents to the crowd. This was just one of the multiple orientation dates on campus, so it was not all the families of incoming athletes. To the left, you can see a picture of Dawn up on stage during the welcoming presentation. She talked to parents about everything: academic standards, athletic trainers, emergency medical steps, expectations of the student-athletes, activities around Westerville, and her open-door policy for concerns, just to name a few. Dawn was an all-star up there, giving the families all the pertinent information, without dragging on or boring anyone. Once the presentation came to an end, I went around and collected all of the short surveys that were passed out at the beginning. Once we got all of the presentation supplies back to Dawn's car, I was out of there for the day.
Once I was done with this, Dawn and I headed to the Battlle Fine Arts Building. She was giving a presentation to the parents of incoming Freshmen athletes on what it means to be a student-athlete at Otterbein. She would be presenting, and I was her assistant, passing out flyers, surveys, pencils, and other documents to the crowd. This was just one of the multiple orientation dates on campus, so it was not all the families of incoming athletes. To the left, you can see a picture of Dawn up on stage during the welcoming presentation. She talked to parents about everything: academic standards, athletic trainers, emergency medical steps, expectations of the student-athletes, activities around Westerville, and her open-door policy for concerns, just to name a few. Dawn was an all-star up there, giving the families all the pertinent information, without dragging on or boring anyone. Once the presentation came to an end, I went around and collected all of the short surveys that were passed out at the beginning. Once we got all of the presentation supplies back to Dawn's car, I was out of there for the day.
Wednesday, June 22nd - Day 23 - Meeting with Marriott's Jessica Beckner
The first order of business for today was our meeting with Marriott hotel rep Jessica Beckner. Dawn and I headed to the Columbus Courtyard Worthington, off State Route 23, just a few minutes from campus. We had a folder of pamphlets, documents, and sponsor donor levels ready to go. To start the 11am meeting, Jessica took us on a tour of the location and facilities, showing us the cafe, courtyard, an example of each of the room layouts, the meeting rooms, the pool, and the workout center. This was a very nice location with a lot of different amenities offered. We talked about the potential needs of away teams and their families and other general topics. Once the walk-through was complete, we came back to the lobby to sit down and talk more specifics. With all Otterbein's hotel partnerships in the past, hotels have offered Team Rates (internal, not advertised to the public) and Parent/Family Rates (to be included on the away team welcome guide). Dawn also shared with Jessica an example of the few tournaments, camps, and large events that Otterbein Athletics host on a yearly basis. This provides the chance for a hotel to book a massive block of their rooms for the weekend just due to one event on campus. This event list included:
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We went over the set plans and donor levels that we currently offer with Otterbein Athletics, but also discussed the possibility of flexing those to Marriott's budget and plans. We also showed Jessica our welcome guide that we give to away teams, their families, or any other group coming for a stay for an on-campus event. This guide includes a map of campus and intro to our athletics facilities, as well as information about Westerville and area businesses. We make sure to highlight all our corporate sponsorships in this guide. To the right, you can see an example of one of the pages. This is where the Courtyard Marriott would land if they come in on an official partnership. The meeting went well and Jessica had a lot to think about. She'll be talking with colleagues about this potential partnership and hopefully get back with us soon.
Once the meeting was over and I was back on campus, I headed up to the office. I checked my email for any updates, and sent quick responses to City BBQ and Diane about a copy job she left for me. With a little down time and not much going on in the afternoon hours at the office, I put the finishing touches on the notes from the Otterbein Corporate Sponsorship meeting on 6/1. You can see these notes on the Projects and Portfolio page of this Weebly website. Once that was done, I swung down to Skip's office in the Rike to see what he was up to or if any help was needed. He was actually just about to head home for the day, so I did the same.
Once the meeting was over and I was back on campus, I headed up to the office. I checked my email for any updates, and sent quick responses to City BBQ and Diane about a copy job she left for me. With a little down time and not much going on in the afternoon hours at the office, I put the finishing touches on the notes from the Otterbein Corporate Sponsorship meeting on 6/1. You can see these notes on the Projects and Portfolio page of this Weebly website. Once that was done, I swung down to Skip's office in the Rike to see what he was up to or if any help was needed. He was actually just about to head home for the day, so I did the same.
Tuesday, June 21st - Day 22 - Checking in on Corporate Sponsors
Today I was in for a 5-hour afternoon shift. I was very busy in the office with clerical tasks, as this was the first day seeing Dawn back from Dallas. We had a short meeting in her office, going over what I did while she was away and then I was off to the front desk. This was a busy emailing day, as I fired off 15 different email to multiple different people on various projects. I sent out reminders of upcoming sponsorship material deadlines to City BBQ, Roush Honda, Education First Credit Union, Rusty Bucket, Uptown Hair Salon, OhioHealth, and Nationwide. I also finished updating the Otterbein database of athletics Hall of Fame Inductees for the past decade or so. You can see that list over to the right hand side. This list was saved, but not actually live online, so I got it up to date. I also finished stapling and calculating Diane's receipts she'd left on my desk at the end of last week.
Lastly, Dawn and I were prepping for our upcoming meeting tomorrow with Jessica Beckner from Mariott Hotels. This has the potential to be a new partnership and corporate sponsor with Otterbein Athletics, so we want to be fully ready and present a good face for the university. Dawn had a job for me where I made copies of old programs and lodging/meeting room suggestions for traveling away teams. This is like our away team guide to where to stay, where to eat, and what to do around the campus and the area of Westerville. Once I was done, I was out of the office for the day. |
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Friday, June 17th - Day 21 - Building a Database of Champions
My biggest task of the week
- Finish typing notes from the June 1st campus corporate sponsorship meeting --- BEGAN 6/14
- Finish the missing sports alumni from database, then type into a spreadsheet --- DONE 6/10
- Make labels for file folders (label terms were given to me) --- DONE 6/13
- Make a database of the years each sports team won an OAC Championship and/or made an NCAA postseason appearance --- DONE 6/17
- Buy a $50 gift card to complete the Otterbein Athletics gear package, then send out to a specified address via campus mail --- DONE 6/14
- Shred a stack of old office documents --- DONE 6/13
- Work with facilities manager Skip as needed --- DONE 6/15 & 6/17
- Carry out various tasks given to me by Diane and Kathy in the office --- ONGOING
Wednesday, June 15th - Day 20 - Football & Lacrosse Equipment Inventory
Today I was arriving on campus at 2pm because of our morning/early afternoon football workout at RHS. I did not get to go into the office and knock out any more of Dawn's to-do list since Skip needed my help. First, he had me go through all football uniform inventory; marking down the sizes, jersey numbers, and any duplicates of all 4 sets of jerseys (cardinal home game jersey, white away game jersey, cardinal practice jersey, and white practice jersey). This, a mindless task, was something I've become quite familiar with at RHS from my own equipment duties. I turned the radio on some classic rock and just started plugging away with my notes. Skip left me for the better part of an hour before returning. Once he came back, he explained my next task would be to go through all the lacrosse helmets and gloves, noting their sizes. He then left again to go off on his own tasks. I finally finished with my football jersey inventory (it took longer than I expected, because some jerseys were not in numerical order) and then took to the lacrosse portion of it. This part went a little quicker since I didn't have to worry about numbers and the shear volume for everything a sport like football presents. As I was logging my lacrosse inventory, I boxed up the gloves and set the helmets on shelving, making everything much neater and more organized than it was before. Once I was done with this I texted Skip, and he said that's all for today. I shut down the stereo, locked up the equipment room, and headed to my car, more than ready for dinner.
- Finish typing notes from the June 1st campus corporate sponsorship meeting --- BEGAN 6/14
- Finish the missing sports alumni from database, then type into a spreadsheet --- DONE 6/10
- Make labels for file folders (label terms were given to me) --- DONE 6/13
- Make a database of the years each sports team won an OAC Championship and/or made an NCAA postseason appearance
- Buy a $50 gift card to complete the Otterbein Athletics gear package, then send out to a specified address via campus mail --- DONE 6/14
- Shred a stack of old office documents --- DONE 6/13
- Work with facilities manager Skip as needed --- DONE 6/15
- Carry out various tasks given to me by Diane and Kathy in the office --- ONGOING
Tuesday, June 14th - Day 19 - Visiting the Campus Mail Center
Just like yesterday, today was another 4-hour afternoon shift. I could not come in any earlier due to a dentist appointment at 11:00am. Once I got here and checked in on mail sorting/email updates/voicemail messages, I got to work on my next item from Dawn's list: completing the goodie package and mailing it out. This package with an Otterbein Cardinals shirt, jacket, hat, and Rusty Bucket gift card is for a recent graduate, as a thank you for his help with the annual Cardy Awards. According to OtterbeinCardinals.com, the Cardy Awards were put in place to, "recognize and celebrate the past year of success stories, accomplishments and record-breaking moments." To finish this thank you package, I first had to get money from Diane, sign off on it for the department, and then drive to local restaurant Rusty Bucket, to purchase the gift card. I then packed all items, along with a thank you note, in the box, and taped it up. I then looked up the address and wrote the packing label. I had to head to the campus mailing department, in the bottom of Towers Hall. The most prominent building on campus, Towers Hall has been around since the campus' founding in 1847 (although it was once burnt down and then rebuilt in 1870). Below is a picture I took walking up to Towers Hall, complete with a small tour to a perspective incoming student.
After mailing out the package, I came back to the athletics offices to get some work done at the front desk. I greeted a couple of people dropping off items, one with keys to a rental car for our volleyball coach and the other with a few plaques and awards for players/coaches on the lacrosse, softball, and golf programs. I worked with Diane on some pay stub and receipt filing, as I've described in my post on ___insert date___. I then ended the day by beginning work on the multi-page corporate sponsorship meeting notes. However I did not finish these because I had to leave by 5pm. I may not get to the finishing touches on these notes until Thursday, as it sounds like all day tomorrow I will be working on facilities projects with Skip.
- Finish typing notes from the June 1st campus corporate sponsorship meeting --- BEGAN 6/14
- Finish the missing sports alumni from database, then type into a spreadsheet --- DONE 6/10
- Make labels for file folders (label terms were given to me) --- DONE 6/13
- Make a database of the years each sports team won an OAC Championship and/or made an NCAA postseason appearance
- Buy a $50 gift card to complete the Otterbein Athletics gear package, then send out to a specified address via campus mail --- DONE 6/14
- Shred a stack of old office documents --- DONE 6/13
- Work with facilities manager Skip as needed
- Carry out various tasks given to me by Diane and Kathy in the office --- ONGOING
Monday, June 13th - Day 18 - Flying Solo
I walked in today knowing exactly what I would be doing. It was time to get started with my to-do list of tasks while Dawn is away for the week in Dallas. I started the shift with some regular office upkeep, responding to a voicemail, and sorting mail, before I could focus on crossing items off the list. Each day this week I will put the list in my post, with the updated days I've checked each item off...
THE LIST:
Today I got some of the easy items out of the way, like shredding old documents and making labels for filing folders. Also today, we were able to set a firm plan in place for our initial meeting with Marriott International. At their nearby Courtyard, Dawn and I will be meeting Jessica next Wednesday, June 22 at 11am for a tour and discussion.
Tomorrow it sounds like I will be working mostly with Skip, so I'm not sure if I will make any more progress on my to-do list until Wednesday. And since the sponsorship meeting notes are on my laptop, I will likely finish typing those at home sometime in the coming days. I was in here for 4 afternoon hours today. |
Friday, June 10th - Day 17 - Preparing for Dawn's Absence Next Week
Today I finished getting the alumni missing from our database. The only sports left to complete from yesterday were: Men's Track & Field, Women's Track & Field, and Volleyball. We have no wrestling alums since the upcoming 16/17 school year will be the opening season for Otterbein Wrestling, as mentioned in earlier posts. Anyways, I had completed my task of finding the omitted names, however I was not done with the project. I then typed up all the names, along with the athletes' respective sport(s) and year(s) into an excel spreadsheet. Once all were on there, I sorted them by chronological order of the last season each athlete was on the team (from Fall '09 to Spring '15). Below, you'll see my hand-written pages of names to add and the spreadsheet I made from that information.
As mentioned in earlier posts, Dawn will be gone all of next week for her conferences and meeting in Dallas. Since today is her last day in the on campus until June 20th, we sat down for a meeting of what she expects while I'm gone. For next week, I will report to Diane Ross (Executive Assistant) and Skip Ford (Equipment & Facilities Manager). Asides from whatever Diane and Skip assign to me, Dawn's given me a to-do list for her absence. It has 8-9 main assignments, going from as simple as shredding documents to as complex as making an all-encompassing database of each sport's history of OAC Championships and NCAA tournament appearances. I hope to check off each of the items on the to-do list by Dawn's return, but I'm sure I won't have much down time next week!
Thursday, June 9th - Day 16 - Staring at Spreadsheets
Yesterday I spent no more than an hour or two organizing the athletics alumni spreadsheet into each individual sport, but this was just the beginning... The vast majority of my 7.5 hour shift today was spent researching which names we need our Alumni Relations Office to add to our athletics alumni database. This consisted of going back and forth between the archived team rosters on OtterbeinCardinals.com and the athletics alumni master spreadsheet, making sure each name from each team over the past 6 years was listed on our database. If I found a name on
the website that was left out of the database I had to make note of it. I first start with the Seniors on the 2015 Baseball team. And then the 2014 Baseball team, 2013...etc through the 2009/2010 school year. Once this is done, I get started on the Men's Basketball team, then Women's Basketball...etc through all 18 Varsity sports. As you can see, this is a tedious process. I don't mind it, and actually, I'm pretty good anything detail-oriented like this. I organize the spreadsheet to show the information I need, sort it the best way to streamline the process, and get plugging away. Once I find the patterns and
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get into a groove I'm good to go. Some people dread working with Excel spreadsheets, but I actually enjoy the challenge of finding the absolute best way to carry out a task, then formatting/organizing my spreadsheet to match my mindset. I'm a very structured, black & white type of person. And I excel at Excel.
Wednesday, June 8th - Day 15 - The Birth of a New Partnership?
Today my shift only lasted about 4 hours. This is because we had our first team camp of the summer for Reynoldsburg Football, and I had to leave Otterbein by 2pm in order to fulfill my coaching duties. I'm finding out that Dawn is very easy to work with when it comes to my personal schedule and time constraints. While I haven't had many things get in the way of my Otterbein schedule thus far, now that the kids are out of school for the summer the time spent on the RHS football program is about to ramp up a notch.
I first sent out an email to our contact at Marriott Hotels to set up our sponsorship meeting. While in the past few weeks I had been communicating and working a lot with our existing sponsorships, this is the first time I'm experiencing what the opening stages of a partnership look like. Most often sponsorships are made by the athletic department reaching out to businesses, but in this case Jessica from Marriott International was the one to spur the initial dialogue. She said she'd noticed we had a couple hotel partners listed on our website and was wondering what steps and requirements it takes to become a sponsor. I responded via email and will wait to see where this goes. Hopefully we will be able to set up a meeting down the road to discuss the benefits of a Marriott Hotels/Otterbein Athletics partnership.
I first sent out an email to our contact at Marriott Hotels to set up our sponsorship meeting. While in the past few weeks I had been communicating and working a lot with our existing sponsorships, this is the first time I'm experiencing what the opening stages of a partnership look like. Most often sponsorships are made by the athletic department reaching out to businesses, but in this case Jessica from Marriott International was the one to spur the initial dialogue. She said she'd noticed we had a couple hotel partners listed on our website and was wondering what steps and requirements it takes to become a sponsor. I responded via email and will wait to see where this goes. Hopefully we will be able to set up a meeting down the road to discuss the benefits of a Marriott Hotels/Otterbein Athletics partnership.
Tuesday, June 7th, 2016 - Day 14 - New Connections & Newsletter Planning
When I first came in, we sat down with an aspiring collegiate athletic director for an informal networking chat. He just worked for Northwestern Athletics, mainly focusing in the areas of marketing and sponsorships. Originally from Lancaster, his family has recently moved back to Central Ohio since his wife just took up a job offer. He is looking to get back into collegiate athletics, aspiring to become an AD. He wanted to sit down with us to see what life is like in a Division-III athletic department. We discussed everything from managing the department budget, working to find new sponsors, building the wrestling program, and using athletics as a tool to drive student admissions. One noteworthy quote from Dawn during this discussion was, "know what you don't know, and staff that very well." At the conclusion of the chat, he discussed his attempt to meet with other prominent athletics administrators in Columbus as he gains information and builds personal connections. I am finding it personally rewarding to hear about how people get into athletics and find jobs throughout their career. Each person follows a path unique and specific to themselves. He is not jumping at the very first job that pops up. He wants to wait, and find the right job situation for him and his young family.
I kept myself busy in the office for with emails and other non-exciting tasks, and then at 2pm we had another meeting lined up. Dawn and I met with Becky (Alumni Director), Deana (Assistant Alumni Director), and Matt (Communications Dept) for an Alumni Relations meeting. The topic of discussion centered around the athletic department attempting to find and contact as many alumni as possible via postcard, to gauge whether or not they are interested in the new athletics e-newsletter. Also, we sorted out what headings, information, articles, and overall content would comprise of this quarterly athletics newsletter. Some bullet points I scribbled down during the meeting:
I kept myself busy in the office for with emails and other non-exciting tasks, and then at 2pm we had another meeting lined up. Dawn and I met with Becky (Alumni Director), Deana (Assistant Alumni Director), and Matt (Communications Dept) for an Alumni Relations meeting. The topic of discussion centered around the athletic department attempting to find and contact as many alumni as possible via postcard, to gauge whether or not they are interested in the new athletics e-newsletter. Also, we sorted out what headings, information, articles, and overall content would comprise of this quarterly athletics newsletter. Some bullet points I scribbled down during the meeting:
- Need to set up a consistent template for all future sports newsletters
- Fall sports newsletter in September, Winter sports newsletter in January, and Spring sports newsletter in May
- Include links to all team sports schedules, rosters, information, and social media sites
- Include tidbits such as ways to give back to athletics, alumni spotlight stories, upcoming events, and ongoing projects around campus
- Monetization: include links to purchase team sideline merchandise, sell game-used equipment such as jerseys and game balls, access to buy team photos, and allow corporate sponsors to advertise within the newsletter
- Populate the athletics site (OtterbeinCardinals.com) with article and blurbs initially written for the e-newsletter
Not one after the alumni relations meeting, Dawn dismissed me from the office for the day. She sent me down to Skip to see if he needed any help. He didn't have anything pressing, but said I could do a litter patrol run if I had time. Since I was in no rush and didn't have anything to do for Reynoldsburg football, I spent about 20-25 minutes on the golf cart with a garbage bag roaming the athletics facilities for litter and errant trash. Then, I was out for the day after less than 5 hours on campus.
Monday, June 6th, 2016 - Day 13 - Fantastic Football Fanfest Flyer Finalized, Forwarded
Today was a quick, but productive shift. I was only in for 2 hours because of my obligations with RHS Football in the morning, and then Dawn had me leave when she had afternoon meetings that I could not attend. To start, Dawn had me focus on our corporate sponsorship contacts. This meant checking in on a few partners to see if they were working on the advertising materials for our sports program (Roush Honda, MSA Architects) as well as introduce myself to some newer partners (Uptown Hair Salon, Education First).
Then, it was tidying up on the Moeller/St. Ignatius tailgate experience flyer. I know I've discussed this at length before, so I'll just show you the finished flyers. Note, the empty space at the top of each page is to allow them to be printed on the official Otterbein Athletics letterhead.
Then, it was tidying up on the Moeller/St. Ignatius tailgate experience flyer. I know I've discussed this at length before, so I'll just show you the finished flyers. Note, the empty space at the top of each page is to allow them to be printed on the official Otterbein Athletics letterhead.
Now that they're finalized, Dawn hopes to send these out to each respective school tomorrow. This football game is a big deal and if they approve of these tailgate zones, it will be even more of a special event for Otterbein and the schools involved. It's also worth noting that Red Frog Food & Beverage is a local business and corporate sponsor of Otterbein Athletics, so they will love the extra exposure and business.
Today was my shortest shift to date, but I was still able to get some serious work done!
Today was my shortest shift to date, but I was still able to get some serious work done!
Saturday, June 4th, 2016 - Day 12 - Lauren's First & Goal Football Camp
The biggest campus event of the summer has now come and gone. Man, that was a long day!
By far my earliest and longest shift, I was on campus by 6:45am, groggy-eyed and ready to go. I was assigned to concession stand duties for the day, so I made my way to my station in the Rike Center. The first order of business was prepping for the arrival of the coaches and the pre-camp breakfast. So I started brewing coffee, putting the water and OJ in the coolers on ice, and laying out the Panera bagels. The breakfast was at 8am, so coaches began shuffling in not long after I'd been there. Once the food and drink was pretty much ready to go, I moved over to one of the registration tables, welcoming in coaches and making sure we had their information. After they were all here and breakfast was mostly over, Tim called everyone over to the stands to go over the game plan and schedule for the day. I transitioned to breakfast clean-up. There were nearly 300 coaches and camp leaders in attendance, so even this was a big task. Campers started showing up, and were directed those that didn't see the signage over to registration at the Clements Center tennis courts. Registration was from 8:30-9:30am, with a formal meeting soon after and the camp instruction beginning promptly at 10:00am.
By far my earliest and longest shift, I was on campus by 6:45am, groggy-eyed and ready to go. I was assigned to concession stand duties for the day, so I made my way to my station in the Rike Center. The first order of business was prepping for the arrival of the coaches and the pre-camp breakfast. So I started brewing coffee, putting the water and OJ in the coolers on ice, and laying out the Panera bagels. The breakfast was at 8am, so coaches began shuffling in not long after I'd been there. Once the food and drink was pretty much ready to go, I moved over to one of the registration tables, welcoming in coaches and making sure we had their information. After they were all here and breakfast was mostly over, Tim called everyone over to the stands to go over the game plan and schedule for the day. I transitioned to breakfast clean-up. There were nearly 300 coaches and camp leaders in attendance, so even this was a big task. Campers started showing up, and were directed those that didn't see the signage over to registration at the Clements Center tennis courts. Registration was from 8:30-9:30am, with a formal meeting soon after and the camp instruction beginning promptly at 10:00am.
By the time the camp started and the drills were underway, we had already begun to focus on lunch prep at the concession area. Our grill-masters, three Otterbein alumni that still live in Westerville, showed up and introduced themselves. We carted the two grills and large canopy tent just outside the Rike building and concession stand. I helped them put up the tent and get the propane hooked up. We then began sending frozen patties, hot dogs, buns, and cheese slices out to them. This is all the stuff me and Connie had bought at GFS the other day. Anyways, as they'd send us in a pan of cooked meat, we'd put them on buns and foil wrap them up before placing them neatly in the stand-up warmer. We had to not only keep them organized by cheeseburger/hamburger/hotdog, but also by when they were cooked as to keep everything fresh and not have them sit in there too long. Jet's Pizza made a huge delivery and we had to get those set up by topping. Parents and patrons had been shuffling in, and at the concession stand we were transitioning from serving the rest of our bagels, doughnuts, and coffee drinks into the lunch menu of burgers, hotdogs, and pizza. There were so many things happening and so many people moving around, we each became pegged into our few duties. A few of the girls were more into greeting customers, taking orders, and running the money drawers. I more ended up being the back side, running between the grills and the stand, stocking the warming chest and delivering items to the front of the stand when someone yelled back what they needed. The biggest rush was from 12:30-1:00, when the entire camp broke for lunch. There were well over 1,000 campers, plus family members, coaches, and other volunteers to feed. Once the camp resumed at 1:30, we closed up the grill and began breaking the grill station down. I had been running around since before 7am and this was the first moment I had to stop and take a breath.
We continued selling items after the lunch rush. As less and less customers came by we began to consolidate, clean, and break down both the concession stand and the impromptu cafeteria on the practice basketball courts. I was pulled from the concession stand around 2:30, as we were now an hour from the camp coming to a formal close. I helped break down tables and tents outside the football stadium, as well as clean up football equipment that was no longer needed on the fields. I had a golf cart to tote the shields, bags, tents, and coolers around. The camp ended at 3:30 and then everyone was in full clean-up mode. I took a full inventory of the remaining concession stand items, which you can see to the left.
We were expecting 1,500-2,000 participants, but got closer to 1,300 so we ended up with some extra leftover food items. There was a possibility for rain in the forecast that might have scared some away, but that storm didn't come until 7-8pm. I was a little sad to not have done more on-field football activities on the camp day, but I have no problem doing what's asked of me. It was still a great experience and hectic way to spend a Saturday. To learn more about Lauren's First & Goal, who it benefits, and how to get involved, you can visit http://www.laurensfirstandgoal.org for all sorts of information about the camp and Lauren's story.
Friday, June 3rd, 2016 - Day 11 - Final Preparations for LFG
As I got to campus today, Dawn was headed to a meeting. She texted me to head to the field house for LFG set-up. When I got there, Skip sent me out to clear the tennis court area with a Gator. I picked up all loose debris and trash, while I collected all of the brown chairs they'd had out for an event last night. It took 3 total trips to collect everything, mainly because there were 30-40 chairs to get collected and they weren't foldable. This was actually a bit of work, as it was hot out and then I had to carry the chairs up to 2nd floor storage in the Clements Center. After that task was completed, I joined up with the football coaches and graduate assistants for the rest of the afternoon. First, we headed over to a local church in Tim Doup's big pick-up truck. They had multiple long folding tables they were lending to Otterbein for LFG. We picked up about 12-14 of them, carrying them from basement storage and up to the driveway. Two of the GA's actually sat in the back of the truck on the way back to the Rike to hold them all down in the cargo area. We then set them up on the practice courts of the Rike, along with the bunch of tables and chairs already in possession, for the large coaches and family breakfast to take place before the campers arrived the next morning. Then we grabbed a few remaining tables and chairs, and carted them over to the Clements tennis courts to set up the registration tables. This is where the camp attendees would show up and give their information before the clinic started. Each registration table had different letters of the alphabet for campers to be sorted out by last name. We had to have over 40 tables up when it was all said and done. About that time is when our two extra Gators arrived on the back of a trailer. Allan Moore, the defensive coordinator, had driven over an hour away to pick up these two Gators for us to rent for the weekend. He parked, we unlocked the restraints and guided them off the trailer. Then a group of 4 of us, each in a different Gator, ran down to the Campus Center building on Home Street to pick up a huge pile of bottled waters. We loaded all 4 Gators to the brim, with who knows how many cases of bottled waters, and headed back to the Rike. We unloaded all of them behind the concession stand area, putting some in the refrigerators, some in the tall rolling coolers, and the rest in a pile that would be easy to get to the next day.
I don't quite think I understood the scope and massive size of Lauren's First & Goal Football Camp until today. It was amazing just how much of everything was needed at each station. After a 5-hour shift running around with the football staff, my day was done. All the plans had been set long ago and now all the supplies and equipment were in place. LFG was now just hours away and tomorrow would be a long day.
On a side note, I was invited out by the football staff to a welcome dinner at the Rusty Bucket that night. It was for all of the coaches coming in from out of town, to grab a drink and catch up with each other. Many of the same coaches put on this clinic every year, volunteering their time for free to the cause. This was Otterbein's way of thanking the coaches; bringing them together and picking up the dinner and drinks tab. I was glad to go to this, as I got to meet with coaches from all different programs around the Midwest, including the TE Coach at Ohio State and OLB Coach at Army. I did not include these hours as a part of my mentorship tally because I wasn't technically working, just enjoying football stories and meeting new coaches. However, this dinner was one of, if not the, most enjoyable and biggest learning experiences from the mentorship. As just an assistant high school football coach, I was at the same table with prominent college coaches and looked at as an equal for those few hours.
On a side note, I was invited out by the football staff to a welcome dinner at the Rusty Bucket that night. It was for all of the coaches coming in from out of town, to grab a drink and catch up with each other. Many of the same coaches put on this clinic every year, volunteering their time for free to the cause. This was Otterbein's way of thanking the coaches; bringing them together and picking up the dinner and drinks tab. I was glad to go to this, as I got to meet with coaches from all different programs around the Midwest, including the TE Coach at Ohio State and OLB Coach at Army. I did not include these hours as a part of my mentorship tally because I wasn't technically working, just enjoying football stories and meeting new coaches. However, this dinner was one of, if not the, most enjoyable and biggest learning experiences from the mentorship. As just an assistant high school football coach, I was at the same table with prominent college coaches and looked at as an equal for those few hours.
Thursday, June 2nd, 2016 - Day 10 - Getting Ready for Hundreds of Players, Coaches, & Families
I arrived to the office today with no specific projects or tasks. I had an email to respond to, this one from MSA Architects, clarifying that they were still getting a full-page color ad in the football and basketball programs. I told them this was correct, and said we had about a month to finalize the ad. There weren't any other sponsor communications I needed to make at this point, even though some of the companies I still hadn't heard back from.
I then worked on formatting the Moeller/Ignatius VIP Tailgate flyer. From Dawn's direction, I had to open up some empty space at the top of the flyer so it could be printed on the Otterbein University official letterhead. I did so, and then sent the draft back to Dawn for approval. I think we are nearing the final draft of this flyer to be sent along to each high school football program. At 11:30, we had a "Final Preparations" meeting for Lauren's First & Goal Camp in the Clements Center 2nd floor lobby. Check-in and registration for the camp was now less than 48 hours away from beginning. This meeting involved me, Dawn, Skip, Connie, Tim, Kathy, Diane, and four assistant coaches/graduate assistants on the football staff. The vast majority of the groundwork had been laid for the event well before this meeting. The main topics discussed today were:
Once this meeting was over and the list for GFS had been finalized, Connie and I hit the road to go on a shopping excursion. We walked the floors of Gordon Food Service with a pair of carts, and that barely seemed to be enough! We bought LARGE amounts of hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, bananas, apples, chips, candy bars, tin foil, condiments, hard candies, granola bars, pretzels, napkins, paper plates, and just about anything else you can think of that's needed for a successful concession stand (not including drinks due to the Pepsi contract). We packed those carts full and spent well over $2,000 on supplies. Never before have I been a part of a trip to the grocery store quite like that. It was a task just getting all of that to fit in her Suburban SUV. Once we got back to campus, we enlisted the help of Skip and a few others to make sure the supplies got to the proper storage for a day and a half before the event. Once that project was done, I headed to the loading dock at the Rike to help Skip receive the new Pepsi refrigerator we'd ordered just in time for LFG. The Pepsi workers unloaded it and then Skip and I rolled it to where it was needed for the concession stand. He then told me to head up to the athletic offices to see if Dawn had anything for me. Dawn only told me to drop off an envelope to the Student Affairs office on my way out of campus. So before heading out, I hopped on the desktop to finish the notes from yesterday's Otterbein Corporate Sponsorship Network meeting. I was able to get those edited and formatted to my liking. I then emailed the meeting notes to Dawn and Becky, so they could forward them along to the rest of the group. You can see to the Word document of these notes I typed up all along the right side of today's journal post. |
Wednesday, June 1st, 2016 - Day 9 - A Meeting of the Minds: Campus Sponsorship Collaboration
I was not asked to come in Monday or Tuesday, so after the weekend and a few extra days off I was back at it today with a 6-hour shift. In an effort to better our VIP Tailgate flyer for the Moeller/Ignatius game, Dawn had me go out to the football field to take some pictures. After snapping some from different angles, the ones she ended up liking were my panorama shots from behind the end zones. These were perfect for the flyer, since the VIP Tents would be located on the field just behind the goal posts. You can see my photos below.
After she approved of those shots, I got to work on the flyer. I worked on it at the desk, as well as answered some phone calls for the next hour. To the left, you can see the latest draft of our flyer.
I then sent out a welcome email to our newest sponsor for the upcoming 16/17 school year, Education First Credit Union. I made sure to introduce myself and outline the info and pictures I'd need from them for their banner signage and program/radio ads.
After lunch, I got together with Coach Doup and some of the football staff to prepare for Lauren's First & Goal Football Camp. The camp is this upcoming Saturday, and is the biggest on-campus event Otterbein hosts all Summer. Anyways, I was working with the coaches to pull out t-shirt boxes, yard signs, and concession equipment to make for easy prep Saturday morning. We also went through all the football bags, cones, padded shields, and other equipment needed for drills during the camp. We divided all of this practice equipment into position groups. This was to make sure the QB's had enough footballs, the linemen had enough blocking shields, and the kickers had the tees, for example. Each position group would be assigned a different field and area on Saturday, so this made sure everything would get to the proper place when the campers arrived.
I then sent out a welcome email to our newest sponsor for the upcoming 16/17 school year, Education First Credit Union. I made sure to introduce myself and outline the info and pictures I'd need from them for their banner signage and program/radio ads.
After lunch, I got together with Coach Doup and some of the football staff to prepare for Lauren's First & Goal Football Camp. The camp is this upcoming Saturday, and is the biggest on-campus event Otterbein hosts all Summer. Anyways, I was working with the coaches to pull out t-shirt boxes, yard signs, and concession equipment to make for easy prep Saturday morning. We also went through all the football bags, cones, padded shields, and other equipment needed for drills during the camp. We divided all of this practice equipment into position groups. This was to make sure the QB's had enough footballs, the linemen had enough blocking shields, and the kickers had the tees, for example. Each position group would be assigned a different field and area on Saturday, so this made sure everything would get to the proper place when the campers arrived.
After I got dismissed from LFG set-up, I came back up to the office to see if anything was needed of me. Dawn forwarded me the list of D-3 registrants for the upcoming NACDA convention in Dallas. Somewhere along the line the excel spreadsheet got screwed up, and had a bunch of duplicates and formatting issues. She assigned me to clean it up, since attention to detail and spreadsheets are two of my strong points. Below, you can see the top portion of the newly-organized AD registrant list.
Dawn and I then headed out on campus towards Roush Hall. We had a 3:00pm meeting for a new board of Otterbein staff from various departments. This board was established to pull-together corporate sponsorship ideas and initiatives rather than leave every department to fend for themselves. This, the first meeting of the "Otterbein Corporate Sponsorship Network" involved the following departments within the university:
- Athletics (Dawn & I)
- Alumni Relations (Becky Smith and Dana Madden Viglietta)
- Advancement (Kathleen Bonte)
- Center for Community Engagement (Stacey Rusterholz)
Friday, May 27th, 2016 - Day 8 - Skip's Sidekick
Again, Dawn didn't need me in the office so it was Day #2 getting my hands dirty out and about with Skip. We started the day in the laundry room, dealing with the uniforms for the baseball team. We had to take all of the recently-cleaned hanging game pants, fold them, sort them by size and color, and then wrap and label them. Once he showed me what to do, he left to work on other business. I was in there well over an hour sorting, folding, organizing, and labelling them. To the left, you can see some of the game pants once I was done and ready to pack them up into boxes for the offseason. Each pile had tape with my writing, to show what size these pants were and how many were in that pile. This is not at all unlike what I had done months earlier at the end of the my season with RHS Football. I had to count, pack, and label all equipment from Varsity/JV/Freshmen teams. With tasks such as these, it's best to put on some music and just plug away. Once I was done with that, I took another patrol around the athletics facilities in one of the Gators, searching for litter and unnecessary debris. Since I was just out there yesterday, this search yielded much less trash, which is a good thing. It sounds like this is a task that's preferably done daily, but can get put on the back-burner if the to-do list for Skip stacks up. After the trash patrol, we broke to Chipotle for lunch.
After lunch, our afternoon objective was maintenance and cleaning of the Gators and golf carts since it was such a beautiful, sunny day. Otterbein Athletics owns 2 Gators and 4 golf carts, stored in the garage out by the baseball and softball fields. So we grabbed a few keys each and proceeded to pull the vehicles out of the garage and around to where we set the wash station up. Just like any good old driveway car wash, we tackled the dirty vehicles with sponges, buckets of soapy water, and a hose. We took each cart in shifts- I would start by scrubbing and wiping down all the visible surfaces. Once the dirt and marks were cleared away to my liking, I'd pass it off to Skip, where he would power wash the cart down before drying it with towels. About the time he was done drying, I'd have the next cart ready for him. All-in-all, this took us over 3 hours to prep, scrub, wash, dry, and park all the carts before cleaning up our wash station. I was out of there and officially starting my weekend by 4pm.
Thursday, May 26th, 2016 - Day 7 - Facility Cleaning and Maintenance
Today Dawn was busy with meetings she couldn't take me into, so this marked the first day I was under the direction of Skip Ford, the Athletics Facilities Supervisor and Equipment Administrator. I'd met Skip a few times before today, but this was my first shift away from Dawn.
To start, he took me on a tour around the Rike Center, into the locker rooms and other places I hadn't been before. He was talking with Connie about some of the changes and additions they're making to the Women's Basketball locker room for the upcoming season. To the right, you'll see the conference standings board as one of the new pieces going on the locker room's walls. Then I helped Skip pull out the movable bleachers in the Rike Center in preparation for the NCAA Volleyball Coaches Clinic Otterbein would be hosting this upcoming weekend. Apparently this clinic is a big deal and Otterbein had to bid the right to host it. There will be coaches from programs all around the country coming to Columbus for it. Anyways, once the bleachers were pulled out, Skip and I started the long and arduous task of sweeping the floors of each row and wiping down all the seats. The Rike Center, when at capacity, can hold 3,100 for games and events. Skip and I spent nearly 3 hours with this task of clearing the stands of litter and making it shine for the volleyball clinic. The first run through is walking with a litter bag and grabbing all the bottles, papers, wrappers, and whatever else has been left in the seats. The second run-through is taking a large, wide broom and brushing all the small litter and debris. The final run-through is using a wet towel to wipe down the seats, paying special attention to any dirt or spilled liquid.
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Believe me when I say, that is not my favorite task of the mentorship so far. It seems simple, but a couple hours into it you're sweating and ready for a water break. Skip says that when his team of 5 workers do this during the school year after home events, it usually takes them about an hour. But over the summer, when he doesn't have his staff with him and I'm the only help he's got, it takes nearly three hours. But anyways, it was eventually completed. For the last 40 minutes of the day, he had me take one of the Gators around the athletics area of campus to pick up litter. I drove around the gym and fields and courts, stopping at every chip bag, Gatorade bottle, old game program, and anything else I could find. Once I made my round and filled up a couple garbage bags, I was free to go.
Wednesday, May 25th, 2016 - Day 6 - Planning for Interactive Sports Touchscreens
Today I got to the office just after 9am and was able to send out some quick emails before our 10:00am meeting in the O Club Room of Memorial Stadium. I sent responses to Roush Honda and OhioHealth in regards to questions about their sponsorship packages. Then Dawn and I headed down to the stadium for a meeting with Otterbein's IT department. They were in the final stages of putting together two touchscreen monitors in the stadium's front lobby full of Otterbein history, a complete athletic archive, and old pictures and articles. These would be available for fans to explore and learn about the university during games and other events at the stadium. In the surrounding pictures, you can see these monitors, already mounted and displaying a beta version of the program. During the meeting they showed us the various pages and how everything looked so far. Dawn approved of most of the decisions they made up to this point. There were a few formatting issues with the visibility of the text on parts and much of it was still missing data. The crew also noted that some images we sent them were unusable because the files were too small or were not large enough. So we made sure to get a list of what they needed to replace with high quality images. The deadline to get the database finished and everything in place was August 11th, just a couple weeks before the start of the regular season.
After the meeting in the stadium, I got to take my first walk around campus by myself. Dawn had me deliver a package to the mail room and also pick up some "Welcome to Otterbein" informative programs from Clippinger Hall. Of course, I got a little lost looking for one of my stops, but I didn't mind. It was a beautiful, sunny day so it was nice to explore different parts of campus. Below are some pictures from my walk.
For lunch, Dawn invited me out to a lunch at a place called Koble in downtown Westerville. Over the summer, staff from all different departments on campus meet once a month for a big luncheon. It was cool to see how well she knew everyone from different departments. Until this point in my mentorship experience, I'd pretty much just been with people involved in the athletic department. This opened my eyes to how athletics is just one part of Otterbein, and everyone's still connected on the same team. At lunch she introduced me to just about anyone and everyone. It was a lot to digest, trying to memorize names, faces, and what jobs they each had.
After lunch we headed back to the Clements Center. I found a response from MSA Architects on my email. They wanted to see what last year's program ad looked like. I had to do some digging, but found an old program, scanned the ad, and sent it to them. My last project of the day was to help Dawn prepare for an incoming high school baseball team. They were coming to Columbus for a baseball camp from the Toledo area, and were stopping by to take a tour of Otterbein's facilities and meet with the baseball coaches. So I put together packages, like the one above, for each member of the team. They'd get a folder with information about the university, athletics, Cardinal baseball history, and an Otterbein shirt. To the left, you'll see a copy of the team's agenda for the on-campus visit that I put together on Word. After I was done compiling the player welcome packages, I boxed them up and was done working for the day. My 7.5-hour shift today was the longest thus far.
Tuesday, May 24th, 2016 - Day 5 - Diagraming Dawn's Dallas Docket
Today I showed up to the office, ready to get back at it. I didn't have any emails or notes with directions, and Dawn was in a closed-door meeting, so I just went ahead and continued on the Moeller/Ignatius tailgate flyer. I had the bulk of the text done, but was now working on finding images to use and how best to format everything to fit all the information and make it catch your attention. Then Dawn swung by the front desk, leaving me new edits and additions for the trio of ALAB Student Advisory Board Notes from last week, as well as informing me of her upcoming trip to Dallas. So I then got to work on typing and fixing the ALAB documents. This would end up being the final draft of all three. To the right, you can see an example of one of them.
During my work on the computer, I got a phone call from Muskingum University, informing me of a date switch for a Men's Basketball game in December. To make sure all was right, I had to check on this with Brian, our head coach, and then get Kathy to type up a new contract for the new date. I then called Muskingum back to confirm that everyone was on the same page.
My main project for the day was putting together a comprehensive schedule of Dawn's daily schedule for her trip to conferences in Dallas. This event was put on for athletic administrators by theses three governing bodies:
During my work on the computer, I got a phone call from Muskingum University, informing me of a date switch for a Men's Basketball game in December. To make sure all was right, I had to check on this with Brian, our head coach, and then get Kathy to type up a new contract for the new date. I then called Muskingum back to confirm that everyone was on the same page.
My main project for the day was putting together a comprehensive schedule of Dawn's daily schedule for her trip to conferences in Dallas. This event was put on for athletic administrators by theses three governing bodies:
- National Collegiate Athletic Association
- National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics
- National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators
Dawn would be flying out June 12th and coming back June 17th. She had certain engagements and functions that were absolutely imperative to be in attendance for, and others that she could pick out. Basically, she went through the programs for each organization and circled which ones she wanted or needed to go to. Then I was to go through those three individual schedules and type up everything she circled, with the time and location, to build one personalized itinerary and check for conflicts. After compiling it all, as you can see below, there were only two overlaps and both were on Tuesday. She said to leave it as-is and once she's there she could decide which to go to or leave early from. So below is the final lineup for her trip to administrative conferences in Dallas. Just look at how crazy that is. I guess the life of a college athletic director doesn't allow for much time to stop and take a break!
Monday, May 23rd, 2016 - Day 4 - Learning the Daily Life of a Receptionist / Intern
I was not asked to come in Friday, so Day 4 at Otterbein was a 5 hour shift to start the work week. When I first arrived to the office there were a pile of paperwork, some baggies with receipts in them, and a note from Diane. Diane Ross is a full time staff member in the office as the Executive Assistant. She does a lot with budgeting and accounting. Anyways, as she explained to me, the paperwork was a huge pile of pay stubs, receipts and other unorganized expenses from the various sports. Some were concession stand sales tallies from a home game, others were meal and travel expenses from teams for away contests, and there were also some equipment purchases. This pile consisted of forms and receipts from any sport and event from since February. I had to go through, and first sort them by team (i.e. Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, Track & Field). Once they were broken down into sport program, I then had to sort them chronologically and match the actual paper receipt with the matching form (explaining what it was and where it goes) from the athletic department. Once they were sorted and stapled, I put them in the proper folders and filing cabinets. This is a tedious process, so it's what I spent most of the morning working on, only stopping to answer phone calls.
After that was completed a little before 1pm, I went back to the NCAA Self-Study I mentioned from last Tuesday. I had not finished it last week, but Dawn said this was not a pressing matter so just work on it when I have some free time. After about 20 minutes, Dawn came by and gave me a new task to start. She introduced this new event to me that Otterbein would be hosting in the Fall. In October, Memorial Stadium would play host to the St. Ignatius Wildcats vs. Moeller Crusaders high school football game. This would be a special event with two of the most prominent Division I football programs, traveling from Cincinnati and Cleveland, meeting in the middle on Otterbein's Campus. Dawn explained that there would also be a special VIP tailgate package offered to each team's fans, and that I would be working on the flyer for it. To the right, you'll see some of the initial information I typed up for the first draft. I did not get it done today, but Dawn said we just needed the flyer finished in a few weeks. I then got shooed out of the office by 3pm.
Thursday, May 19th, 2016 - Day 3 - Dissecting the Clements Center Budget & Prioritizing Projects
Today I was in there for a long 6+ hour shift in the office. To begin the day, Dawn forwarded me email conversations from multiple sponsors to get me up to speed on where each one was in the process. She then had me draft a generic email message, which I modified for each individual company, to send out. This email was to introduce myself as their contact for the Summer, remind them of what sponsorship levels they were looking at, and just in general to reach out to them. Some of the companies had not been contacted in a few weeks. Below is an example of one of the emails I was sending out, and making sure Dawn approved of it.
As you can see, this one was going to Rusty Bucket restaurants. However, by the end of the morning I'd contacted Sunny Street Cafe, MSA Architects, City BBQ, Roush Honda, and OhioHealth.
Once those initial emails were sent, I shifted to another project. Graduate Assistant review forms were due on 5/13, but not all had been received at this point. So my job was to contact the head coaches for the sports that had any missing GA reviews. Again, I had to introduce myself since I hadn't met the majority of the coaches. Below is an example of one of the emails:
After multiple hours sitting in front of the computer, it was nice to get up and move around. The afternoon would be filled with meetings. At 1pm, I sat in on a meeting between Dawn, Connie (Asst. AD/Women's Basketball), Tim (Asst. AD/Football), Skip (Equipment & Facilities), and Brandon (Women's Soccer) in the 2nd floor Clements Center lobby. Some discussion points of the meeting were as follows:
- Storage rooms and locker rooms in the football stadium
- Storage rooms and locker rooms in the football stadium
- Transitioning the Graduate Assistant office area to a meeting room
- Notifying everyone of a water leak in a corner of one of the storage rooms
- New lacrosse net storage area needed, and must be away from moisture
- How to properly use the ridge rack storage
- Equipment conditions and replacements in the Clements Center
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After the meeting, I came back to the desk for about 20 minutes to check on emails and sent a few replies. But then me and Dawn were off to meet with the Head Wrestling Coach, Brent Rastetter. We actually had the meeting in the soon-to-be construction zone of the racquetball courts. We discussed the options from our meeting with Tim Priest from the day before. Brent seemed to like the idea of having an open room with two beams, rather than having a wall come out 8ft on both ends of the room. He explained how less walls and more space meant the less likely an injury could occur during practices. I think Dawn and I agreed with this sentiment, but of course, the double beam option was a bigger demolition project and therefore much more expensive for the university and athletic department to undertake.
Wednesday, May 18th, 2016 - Day 2 - ALAB Notes and Wrestling Room Project
Coming in on Day 2, I made my way into the facility and got settled into my office like I actually belong here. It's also worth noting that today I got my own official Otterbein computer ID and login. Anyways, the first task of the day was to type in discussion notes under the meeting agenda for a few of Dawn's recent meetings. She is the head of a new advisory council, the Athletics Leadership Advisory Board. This board was set in place for various reasons:
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- To learn about what student-athletes like/dislike about different aspects of their sport program, equipment, facilities, campus activities...etc
- To connect back with former student-athletes and get these alumni back involved in Otterbein Athletics
- To create a mentor/mentee bond between athletics alumni and current student-athletes
- To bring new ideas and perspectives to the table in how to tackle key issues and decisions facing Otterbein Athletics as a whole
ALAB has a few different subcommittees, each focusing on specific areas, such as: alumni cultivation and student-athlete experience. Going back to my task, Dawn handed me the meeting minutes sheet, each with a bunch of her hand-written notes on them, and I was to type up her notes in organized bullet points. This did not take long, but we had a few drafts, as each time I finished she would have me add, subtract, edit, reformat, or reword some information. There were agendas + notes for 3 separate ALAB meetings.
Also today, Dawn and I had two separate meetings pertaining to the newest exciting construction project for Otterbein Athletics. After a student vote and all sorts of research, Otterbein has decided to add Men's Wrestling as a Varsity sport. Maintaining with Title IX compliance rules, Otterbein will officially add their first season of wrestling for the 2016/2017 school year. This has been in the works for a couple years, but now they are less than 6 months away from their first wrestling meet, which Otterbein is hosting by the way. While the interscholastic meets will be held on the main floor of the Rike Center (this court also holds games for Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, and Women's Volleyball), day-to-day conditioning and wrestling practice needs to be held in its own dedicated room. The Otterbein Rike Center is 40 years old and all areas/rooms are currently in use, so it's time for a little creativity. And that is where these meetings come in. It has been decided that two of the racquetball courts will be transitioned into the new wrestling room by knocking out the connecting wall that currently divides them. This is a huge project for many reasons, but none more than the fact that the dividing wall is made up extremely thick cement blocks. There has been a lot of back and forth on how best to do it, especially keeping budget at the forefront of the discussions. First, we met with a contractor and representative of the campus service department to go over our options. The cost of taking the entire wall out from top to bottom could rise up near six figures, so that is why we are looking for other ways to tackle this. The option most discussed today was to make a 15-ft tall clearing by adding a beam the length of the room, while keeping 8-ft portions of the original wall on each end. The problem with this is it would not be a perfect rectangle-shaped room, as it would have only a 24-ft wide opening when the room is 40 feet wide. The other option is taking out the whole 40-ft wide x 15-ft tall section, but then at two large support columns would need to be placed smack dab in the middle of the room. These options were discussed in our first meeting, which took place in the racquetball courts themselves, and also later in the day at the campus Services Department, with the Associate Director of Campus Operations Tim Priest. It is unclear which route we are going at this point.
Lastly, today Dawn and I had a meeting with the manager of the on-campus bookstore. We are seeking to place more sport-specific merchandise in the store, such as Otterbein football hats or Otterbein volleyball t-shirts. We are also discussing a sponsorship package for the bookstore and its mother company Fallet, to possibly include them in our game day programs and campus radio announcements.
Lastly, today Dawn and I had a meeting with the manager of the on-campus bookstore. We are seeking to place more sport-specific merchandise in the store, such as Otterbein football hats or Otterbein volleyball t-shirts. We are also discussing a sponsorship package for the bookstore and its mother company Fallet, to possibly include them in our game day programs and campus radio announcements.
Tuesday, May 17th, 2016 - My First Day with Otterbein Athletics
It's finally here - the first day of my mentorship with Otterbein Athletics! This will be my first direct experience in athletics at the collegiate level and I could not be more excited. I'm sure these next couple of months will go by quickly, so I'm going to soak up as much as I possibly can.
I started the day by getting lost, driving around campus looking for the right building and parking area. Once I figured out my bearings, I was greeted by an enthusiastic Dawn Stewart. We had only previously talked over the phone or email, so this was our first time formally meeting. She gave me a run through of what these next few months might look like for me and discussed a few of the bigger summer events and projects. She mentioned a charity football camp, Lauren's First & Goal in early June, as the biggest on-campus event of the summer.
Then it was off on our tour. She walked me around all of the buildings, offices, gyms, courts, and fields that make up the Otterbein Athletics facility; while giving me backstories along the way. At every stop and around each corner I was introduced to a staff member. With all of the coaches, office staff, supervisors, and trainers it was nearly impossible to keep track of all the names. I was greeted by everyone with smiling faces, welcoming me to Otterbein University.
I came back to the athletic department offices and got shown my work station. I learned that any time I would be carrying out office duties, I would be working at the front desk, since the full-time receptionist is only here 9 months a year (while class is in session and students are on campus). Dawn had to run to a meeting, so Executive Assistant Diane Ross got me warmed up to the front desk. She showed me where all the office supplies were and taught me how to use the phone/voicemail system as well as the scanner/fax machine.
I started the day by getting lost, driving around campus looking for the right building and parking area. Once I figured out my bearings, I was greeted by an enthusiastic Dawn Stewart. We had only previously talked over the phone or email, so this was our first time formally meeting. She gave me a run through of what these next few months might look like for me and discussed a few of the bigger summer events and projects. She mentioned a charity football camp, Lauren's First & Goal in early June, as the biggest on-campus event of the summer.
Then it was off on our tour. She walked me around all of the buildings, offices, gyms, courts, and fields that make up the Otterbein Athletics facility; while giving me backstories along the way. At every stop and around each corner I was introduced to a staff member. With all of the coaches, office staff, supervisors, and trainers it was nearly impossible to keep track of all the names. I was greeted by everyone with smiling faces, welcoming me to Otterbein University.
I came back to the athletic department offices and got shown my work station. I learned that any time I would be carrying out office duties, I would be working at the front desk, since the full-time receptionist is only here 9 months a year (while class is in session and students are on campus). Dawn had to run to a meeting, so Executive Assistant Diane Ross got me warmed up to the front desk. She showed me where all the office supplies were and taught me how to use the phone/voicemail system as well as the scanner/fax machine.
Once I knew where everything was, it was time to work on my first assignments. My first task was to proofread a detailed, multi-page online document. This was Otterbein's "Athletics Program Self-Study" on the NCAA.org website. I went through the long list of paragraphs and pages, looking for errors and misspellings. There were a lot of formatting errors (most of them were from special characters like quotation marks, bullet points, colons, semi-colons...etc) because a lot of the text was copied and pasted from Word or another program into the NCAA website interface. My attention to detail and perfectionist traits bode well for assignments such as this.
After my lunch break, I was tasked with doing some research on the website Athledify.com. Athledify is an online resource center for professionals in intercollegiate athletics. Dawn had me find a specific online class and webinar. Then I forwarded her a linked PDF file, which was some sort of handbook pertaining to class materials. In the process, I even made a personal Athledify account for myself. I plan on working a career in high school athletics, but you never know where I will end up or what I could find useful on that site.
Overall, my first day was more about meeting the staff/coaches and getting acquainted with campus more so than spending hours on work projects. I am excited to progress through this internship and see what my professional career prospects are when I come out on the other side in a few months!
After my lunch break, I was tasked with doing some research on the website Athledify.com. Athledify is an online resource center for professionals in intercollegiate athletics. Dawn had me find a specific online class and webinar. Then I forwarded her a linked PDF file, which was some sort of handbook pertaining to class materials. In the process, I even made a personal Athledify account for myself. I plan on working a career in high school athletics, but you never know where I will end up or what I could find useful on that site.
Overall, my first day was more about meeting the staff/coaches and getting acquainted with campus more so than spending hours on work projects. I am excited to progress through this internship and see what my professional career prospects are when I come out on the other side in a few months!