Summertime in the athletic department is not a vacation. Sure, there are fewer student athletes roaming around and far fewer events, but there is still work to be done. This week I helped with some more manual labor. The Field Hockey and Lacrosse offices were being painted so all of the furniture had to be moved.
The professionals came in and did the actual painting, I was glad to not take part in that. To get through all of the offices and move whatever furniture we could and cover what we could only get to the middle of the room took several hours. It was just my supervisor and I but we worked as a team to accomplish it. The painters took a day to do their work and a couple of days later when we felt it was completely dry we hopped to it and put the furniture back where it belonged. As I have said in a previous post about how things need to get done and they are not always fun or exciting. This was another example of that. I’m sure that because I was intern help it was easier to ask me than a regular staff member and that is fine. I was happy to help and I can’t say this experience in particular was very enlightening in any way except for another reality check that although athletics is fun and exciting, somebody out there is working behind the scenes to do the grunt work. I think that is something important we all remember and are humbled to occasionally if we are lucky enough to work in the field. To truly finish up the camp season is to do a breakdown of the year. I helped the Director of Events to figure out what money we brought in for each of the camps, how much we spent, what we spent it on, and also to compare it all to last year.
I started by doing the numbers for last year. I went back in all of the financial documents and made a list of all the camp income and what camps they were for. The reason we did not have this on file already is because we did not have to do a breakdown comparison like this in the past. A lot of the reason is to see what the new measurable information cost us and if it generated any more revenue with camp attendee income. The next step was to go through all of the camps for this year and calculate the totals. I then moved onto the expenses for both years. The expenses for the previous year were readily available but this year needed to be done. Once all of the raw information was there I put it into a spreadsheet to compare the two and went over everything with the Director of Events. I cannot post the results but it was great because even though we dropped two big camps from our lineup for this year we made up for it in revenue from this year. The downside was that we did have to spend a lot of start up money for the new measurable equipment and signage and also having a few more people on staff to help record results on camp days. Another plus was that our previously existing camps made more revenue this year. Additionally we had to expend more of an insurance cost this year of no fault of our own, just a bump in the cost by the company we go through. Overall we ended up just shy of last year’s total but the big picture is that the measurable testing was a positive force and if we stay on the same track and even add in more camps next year as planned we will surpass our goals. The impact of buying all the equipment and having lost two camps was a hit to the 2014 season but considering those factors we did well and the Board of Directors was pleased. To go along with the endorsed camp that we picked up we had to do some research on the location, the camp it is in conjunction with, make new camp booklet, and just be sure to advertise the way we agreed up on in the contract.
The Director of Events drew up the contract and got it out to the camp director and sorted out all those details. I was in charge of creating a new camp booklet, which I was able to use the bulk of information from previous camps and just rework the details. This was not too bad because the outline and things were already in place. It was much like when I made new booklets for some of our new administered camps earlier this summer. Because I was more familiar with the computer program used this also helped speed up the task. Once the booklet was done and the camp director we were working with was able to look over the manual I revised previously we had a conference call with him to answer any questions he might have and because I have been involved in all things camp related this summer I was on that call. It was good to hear his feedback and be able to give him answers for his questions and/or concerns. The call went very well. Next step was to work with our Director of Media Relations on getting some advertising up on the website for his camp as well as giving him the proper logos to use on his end to promote the camp. We also built pages within the NFCA site to facilitate advertising and applying for the camp through our systems. I tested the site to make sure things were working properly and we let him know when everything was up and running. With the little time that this had to take off I think we all worked as a team at the NFCA to get it going and done well. The NFCA Director of Events got an email from a tournament director that wanted to know if we would be willing to partner up to do an endorsed recruiting camp. We do offer these and have had the same group of them on our recruiting camp summer schedule for quite some time now. When looking into what would need to be done after approval of running this event, or endorsing it rather, the Director of Events realized we needed to redo the Endorsed Camp Manual that we send them.
It is a rather large document and it had not been updated since 2010. Altogether it was about 68 pages start to finish. A lot of the general information was still the same but some things about how we run the camps in general was different from 2010 to now. Also, none of the new measurable information had been incorporated into the old manual. I was tasked with revising the manual, putting in all the new information, taking out the old, and just overall editing of it. The other obstacle with this new camp is that it is run in the fall vs. the summer as our other camps are. We have run fall camps or endorsed fall camps before but the timing is altered due to kids school schedules. What I mean by that is because the kids being in school is not as much of an issue during summer camps but during the fall it is so we need to schedule the camp to accommodate this. I was able to draw up a camp schedule that worked for all the stipulations and add it into the manual as well. This was a pretty big undertaking considering the time restraints. We had to get the ball moving on this camp so the camp director had enough time to read over everything we sent him and get going on his end. I spoke with the Director of Events after I was completed and we went through it together and I showed her all the changes and updates I made just to make sure I did not miss anything. I also expressed concerns that this should be done yearly to avoid this extreme of a makeover to the manual. She agreed and we have put it on the books to do yearly. I have attached a copy of this manual into my Projects page. The last recruiting camp of the season was this past week. It was in Ohio so that was nice to visit home. It has been a camp we have done for a couple of years now but the introduction of the new skills and protocol was also new to this camp.
Because we cannot afford to fly the same strength and conditioning coach to all the camps to run the new skills testing we have to find local people to facilitate that part of the testing. We had secured a guy that works at Ohio State to do the job. He had been informed of all the new measurable items and also been in touch with the other strength coaches we were working with at the other camps. With it being the last camp and all the resources he had we thought it would be smooth sailing. We were wrong. The way he was having our staff record the measurable was inefficient, slowed things down, and made it really hard for us in the end. We caught on how he was doing it during the first session and were able to correct it for the rest of the day but what was done was done. I had to have someone run and get more copies of the measurable sheets copied at Kinkos. It took 3 full days at the office to run through all 60 record sheets and put them in an excel file. It was just tedious work but we got the results posted in time and that is what matters. It is good we give ourselves a window to get them up after the camp but the bottom line is all the skills were there and that is really what matters regardless of how long it takes us to input them. It was a bear of a task but I got it done. Camp season was a success now it is just wrap up stuff to be done and to put some operating procedures in place for the future. It will be helpful for myself, or whomever the camp tasks are assigned to next year. It was sometimes tough doing it blind so if I produce something or guidelines of sorts that will be useful. I ended last week back at Louisville. Things have been pretty hectic with the NFCA and trying to get everything done but I managed to get over here on Friday and Saturday to do some manual labor!
This job goes to show that not everything in college athletics is all fun and games nor is it all glamorous. There are a lot of things that go into even preparation and just day-to-day operation sat a university. I got to experience this first hand and to tell you the truth; manual labor and a finished product make you feel good. It gives you a sense of pride and definitely allows you to enjoy the perks of working in athletics that much more. At least that’s how I feel about it! There is a large room at one of the University of Louisville’s athletic buildings. This building has a huge workout room for athletes and staff, a lot of sports staff offices, two gymnasiums and this large room I am speaking of that is used for athlete study tables and other athletics staff events. My job, to summarize, was to clean the room, clean the furniture, and rearrange the entire room to make it more eye appealing and conducive for its purpose. I was kind of left to my own imagination of how to get the job done, just had to do it. I first started by cleaning the room, picking up trash and that kind of thing. I then started the mission of moving all the furniture around. It was in complete disarray because there had been a watch party for a sporting event in here a few days prior. The process of moving the furniture took several hours and to make sure it looked good. I asked my supervisor to come check my work before I jumped into more cleaning. She liked it and approved. I then came in on Saturday and cleaned all the tables and chairs in the entire room. By no means was this lengthy process a load of fun but it needed to be done just like a lot of other things in athletics have to be done even if it is not “fun”. I was happy with my work and the room was ready just in time for some late afternoon studying on Saturday from some Volleyball players and Men’s Basketball. Our fears were confirmed. The rain came and hit hard. However, we were prepared. I had drafted all the necessary emails the night before and we had everything planned out to be at the facility about 6 hours in advance of the first camp to map it out and set everything up.
I was in charge of getting the emails out to college coaches, campers and the camper’s parents. I also put up notices on the NFCA website and called the office to let them know all the details in case people called there for information. We tweeted the information out because a lot of the college coaches who would be attending follow us on there. Any way we could we got the information out. Getting things like that out the day of an event is hard because not everyone checks their email regularly. The other precaution we took was getting someone from the facility to go over to the previously scheduled fields to set up a sign and hang out there al day to direct anyone who did not get the message to the right place. The indoor facility is great and we made it work. The actual camp portions of the camp and everything involving the student athletes were facilitated just as it would outdoors which was important. The tough part I found was what to do with the parents and coaches. The area inside for them to linger and watch was extremely limited and it became very crowded. I have never done a camp indoors before so this was an all-new experience. We had a lot of the college coaches ask us if we could tell the parents to leave after they dropped their kids off. Of course we could not accommodate this request because we had not mentioned at any point during the selection process or the months of preparation that this could be a possibility. Knowing what I know now this would be something I would gladly add in. The Academic camp on Wednesday runs with everyone there at the same time so the crowd was hectic to say the least. The camp on Thursday was much better because the kids come in waves. All together it is more people but spread out. We also set things up slightly different on Thursday to make things a little easier. Our other big hurdle with using this indoor facility is the parking situation. With that many people involved the parking lot just could not handle it. People were parking illegally regardless of our signage and announcement. We had a few incidents with tickets and even some parents and coaches’ cars getting towed. The NFCA staff was unaware ahead of time that this would be an issue so on Wednesday night after we had the situation mapped out I sent an email out to everyone detailing where they could and could not park and asking them to obey parking restrictions for their own good. Overall the camps were highly successful and everyone seemed to think it was beneficial for them. We had a couple of people complain they did not get notice of the change and by the time they figured it out they missed their session so I offered partial refunds and processed those accordingly. This week headed to Pennsylvania to run two of our biggest camps of the year. The Pennsbury Academic camp on Wednesday that only lets athletes in based upon grades and test scores. The other is our regular Pennsbury camp, which is widely known and highly attended by both athletes and college coaches.
On Sunday I came into the office to do some final detail work, loaded in last minute things into the car. The other thing I did on Sunday was to pull lists of emails for the campers and their parents and send out some final details on the camp. That email is a document in the Projects tab. The email contained all pertinent information for the camp and also just reminders for the parents and athletes. Our hopes in sending that email would be to alleviate some of the questions that tend to come at us last minute before an event, especially because we would already be on the road. It was about a 16-hour drive to our destination and we got there without too much trouble. When we got there and got together with our field managers who flew in to meet us. The forecast for the two camp days was not looking very good so we went out and checked the fields to see how well they would drain, went and looked at our indoor facility option and sat down to discuss. The discussion winded up that we should draft up emails to send to coaches, parents, and athletes and get them ready to send out regarding moving indoors. The decision would be made at 5 am the morning of the first camp. If we were to go outside or try it and it did rain we would have to cancel the whole thing due to the way it runs. That would cost the organization a lot of money. I was in charge of setting up all the emails for both camps (just in case) to all three groups of people. My coworker edited them and I set them up in our automated system so all we would have to do is press go if it came to that. To make our lives easier we purchased a program called FileMaker, which is a database-organizing tool. We created layouts to use for different aspects of the business. One of these is used during camp season. We take all the applications from the website and import them into these databases. It makes it so much easier for us to look at the information we have and then utilize it to help our camps run smooth. All of the camper bags and coaches books along with registration lists are pulled from these different layouts.
In order to make it all work I had to assign each camper numbers and t-shirt colors using filemaker. Once that was done per our standards I edited all the player profiles to look uniform or to correct any big typos. The filemaker also has a layout made for our coach’s books. It will print two player profiles per page with all the pertinent information from the athlete’s applications. There is also a layout that will allow us to print labels with the player’s name, bib # assigned to them, graduation year, and t-shirt color. These are to put on the generic bags we created and also tell us what else goes into them. So if Jamie Hazel was assigned number 102 and a Blue XL T-Shirt it is all on that label and I can put it in her bag. The last few days we spent getting the information in order, printing the labels and books, copying the books, packing the bags, using a binding machine to cut the books and bind them [anywhere from 75-215 books depending on the camp]. It’s a lengthy process especially when preparing for both of the Pennsylvania camps at one time. I coordinated this process and had help with two people in the office. The Director of Events had me repack the trailer with the things we would need for these specific camps and also to replenish any supplies or water we needed. We also had to coordinate with our on site field directors and plan our driving trip to Pennsylvania around when they were getting into the Philadelphia airport. It was an eventful week here at the NFCA. We ran our first camp of the summer with the new measurable in place, the Women’s College World Series finished up and we prepared for the next round of camps with little turnaround time.
The week started with me double and triple checking my lists and making sure they were all set to leave for the first camp. Because the Kansas City camp is new it is a much smaller camp. Making the books and packets was a breeze. I will tell you all more about making books and packets for the other camps that have over 400 athletes and over 140 college coaches! Because we have new measurable we had to figure out a way to record them in the most efficient way possible. I came up with the attached form to test at the first camp. Other things we do will stay the same I just had to edit those to reflect the correct location and camp name. They can be found under the Projects tab of the site. Because we have never had to record the measurable ourselves it was hard to envision how it would happen so we worked with the strength and conditioning coaches on how they thought it should run. We had previously met with them a few weeks back to discuss probable scenarios but I convened with them once more to see how they wanted the sheets done and if they could think of a better way. They were very helpful. I made sure there were enough copies of those as well as extras of all the other paperwork the camp director would need on site. They arrived back from the World Series and I have the director of events and the Kansas City camp director the rundown of where everything was and the things I had prepared for them to be on their way. Everyone seemed pleased and they took off for the camp. On Wednesday I gathered up the staff that was in the office and we loaded the trailer finally! We all worked together to make sure it all got in there and the weight was distributed evenly, it all looked great. There were certain things that the on site director for our camps that we hire to help every summer asked me to keep towards the back and that all got accomplished. I was very pleased with how quickly we got it done and how well everyone worked together. We all even went out to lunch that day to celebrate.
The only things left to go in was last minute camp materials, anything electronic, and the boxes of camper bags [those have not been finished yet]. I was feeling pretty good until we got a call that the athletic trainer for two of our camps in Pennsylvania could no longer make it. This is a big deal because we cannot run an event without a certified athletic trainer being on site the entire time. With our Director of Events out of town still I jumped on it and started making calls to Universities around the Northern Pennsylvania area. I struck out quite a few times but ended up getting ahold of a guy at the College of New Jersey. He was able to help us out and I got him the contracts and W-2 forms to fill out that day. The other task I had to take care of was calling all of the hired workers for the first camp in Kansas City. We hire high school coaches, travel ball coaches, and mostly current college athletes to help facilitate our camps. They hit balls, do our recording and just are the necessary hands we need on site to work a camp and have it run. I spent a good portion of time on the phone getting ahold of everyone, reminding him or her about things and verifying times to show up. Lastly I drafted up some emails to send to our players and parents who were attending the Ohio Recruiting Camp because we changed venues. Event though it is a while away we still wanted to get the word out promptly and to remind people several times. The main goal for the next couple of days in camp preparation is to get the generic bags for campers stuffed with the appropriate materials. What goes into them at this point is the Student-Athlete helpful hints booklet that I copied last week, a copy of our Top Recruit magazine, a May issue of our Fastpitch Delivery newspaper [this issue is the recruiting issue which is why it is used], a pamphlet about a book we endorse for preparing to play collegiate softball, and finally an ink pen from one of our sponsors.
Being a fairly tedious task I set up an assembly line with 3 tables of bag packing stations. I did not want to take three people away from their regular work for long periods of time so I asked them to work in shifts and do a box of bags and then take a break. I worked on them most of the day but it was my primary mission for the week and knew it needed to be completed. The Director of Events was actually out of town during this week for the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City so I was keeping in contact with her and updating her on the progress of camp prep. There was a large list of things to get done so I wanted her to be able to be at ease about the things going on at the office. I was handling it and there was no need for her to worry and she could focus on the tasks in Oklahoma City. By Tuesday afternoon we were done packing the bags, the shirts were done being folded and I had most everything organized for packing on Wednesday. Things are starting to come together now. The things that have been going on do not seem that big but they are time consuming and very important to the operation overall. If we forget things for the camp it is going to screw a lot of things up. I’m definitely taking it seriously and want to do a good job. I strive to always do a good job but I want to demonstrate my ability to lead and complete a task of this magnitude. Today is day two of the Futures program for Region 9 here in Louisville. The format of the day is the same with shortened games being run the entire day and scorers submitting player votes to the tabulator after each game. The only difference is the number of athletes, teams and the age group. Today is the 16-18 age group and it is much larger. I started off the morning quite like yesterday with making new signs for the bleachers and posting signs and schedules.
After that I made sure the locker room was cleaned up and the coaches and referees had enough snacks and drinks for the day. By then it was about time to set up for registration. Today’s registration did take longer and we waited three sets of games for everyone to show up. They all did not play in the first round so some did not need to be there so early. Once the registration was done I went over to the watchtower and again helped with tabulating. Even though it was a larger number of athletes for the day it seemed to run much smoother because everyone knew what they were doing and it was kind of in a groove. In the afternoon my supervisor asked me to go around and take coffee orders from all of the umpires, coaches, and our workers. She and I walked across the street to McDonalds and brought them back for everyone as a “Thank You” and a pick-me-up for the rest of the day. They all appreciated it and it just was a nice gesture. As the day dwindled down and it was in the last game of the day I started in on clean up duty. I took down all signage, cut caution tape barriers down, picked up loose balls, and took out trash from the umpires and coaches room. When all the athletes had started to leave I helped take down the divider net to turn one field into two and put that away. We made sure everything was cleaned up, had a little wrap meeting and were on our way. Overall it was a good experience. It was fun working a different event and I was glad to not be stationary the whole time. Today was the first day of the Field Hockey Futures program being held at the University of Louisville. The Field Hockey Futures program is run by USA Field Hockey and is an elite training experience for high school athletes. It is in game format with scorekeepers and one USA Field Hockey tabulator. Shortened games are coached by top coaches and the teams are made up of girls who may not have ever met.
According to the website it the Futures program is the start of the Olympic Development pipeline and virtually all of the National Team members participated at one time. My supervisor for the day was Lucia White who is the Region 9 Director for the Futures program. She came in from Michigan to head up the event and direct the workers and coaches for the weekend. My first job for the day was to set up signs for the teams on the bleachers, set up snack tables for the coaches in the locker room, make sure the scorers/time table was all set up and make sure schedule signs were posted all over. After that I was responsible for checking in the athletes. They all came at once and we just led them to the section of bleachers where their designated team was located. The check in did not take too long and we waited for any stragglers until after the first game. Once that was cleaned up I was basically on call for the remainder of the games. I helped to gather score sheets from the scorers and return them to the tabulator. I also helped the tabulator double check the scores and make sure everything was entered into the system correctly. I will be working the same event tomorrow, stay tuned! This week at the NFCA all of the supplies we previously ordered to run the camps and the new components were delivered. I was in charge of keeping track of inventory and what new things came in, what we may still be waiting for, and keeping the Director of Events up to date on the information. I was also in charge of putting things together, unpacking the boxes, organizing things to be packed in the trailer.
I had already started to gather things up for the packing of the trailer but as new things were brought in I added them to the mix and got everything labeled appropriately. Camp day is a long day that starts very early with setup so the easier we can make things and hope that it helps make it run like an oiled machine the better. A big portion of what came in this week was the bulk of the camper shirts. The shirts are color-coded based upon graduation year. We pack everything for the campers in a small bag and keep them organized in boxes so we like for the shirts to be folded small and compact. We have come up with a good system of folding but it is extremely time consuming to fold 2,000 t-shirts! I gathered a few staff members and we worked on this for a couple of days and I organized them by color and size in our workroom. We will be packing generic bags next week and then the assembly line for packing actual camp bags will be ready to go. One of the things that is included in the camper bags is a Student Athlete helpful hints booklet so I also made 2,000 copies of this during the week in preparation. Overall it was a productive couple of days and I feel like we really made some headway into preparing for the next two weeks, which will be extremely busy trying to pull everything together. An important part of the recruiting camp preparation is keeping all parents, players and coaches informed. The applications for the camps open up in February but the first camp does not take place until early June. That is a long time for people to have questions and explore our website to find out information. This year I was put in charge of redoing some of the literature for the camps. We link to PDF files of our “Camp Booklet” on each one of the individual camp pages. These booklets have all kinds of information about the location, hotels nearby, what to bring to camp, what to wear to camp, outlines the schedule for the day, outlines of the skills measured, and some general information that is carried over on all booklets. My job was to update the booklets for camps we have held in the past, input all the new measurable information, update phone numbers and contact names. For the new camps I did all of the same but also had to do research on nearby hotels and input directions to the fields as well as other logistical information. Part of making the booklets was also changing the camp schedules for all camps. Even if we were going to start fifteen minutes early that changes every time for the whole day so I reworked all of the schedules as well. After each camp booklet was done or updated I printed them off and proofed myself and then had the Director of Events take a look and make edits. I made any necessary changes and then made all booklets into PDF files to be able to post on the NFCA website. This project was pretty fun actually, I do not normally get to do things like that or post projects onto the website regularly. This was a big project and had a lot go into it so I was proud of the results. I have inserted one of the booklets below.
Next up in the world of recruiting camps is to prepare the packing list and get my “staff” on board. Because this is also a new task assigned to me and there are new things needed to run the new testing. I was told I could utilize the Director of Membership and the Office Manager as my summer help to get things done. My first task was to have a meeting with them to go over timelines. I wanted them to be aware of what was upcoming, what I would need them for, what was priority, and a schedule of when things needed to be completed. I am the only one of the three of us who has even gone through camp season before so this was definitely foreign to them. I started to compile a packing list using old packing lists from events as well as some files I found on our former Director of Events computer. I felt it was best to start from scratch for this year because of all the changes and just a general update of wants and needs. For example, the old packing list would have listed a credit card machine and extra paper for it. We now use the Square technology and an iPad so those things would replace the former. Because none of the lists were 100% complete I took inventory of our recruiting camp closet to see what we had used in the past. This will give me a baseline for later use in seeing what to order or buy whether it be because we have never needed it before or because things we have need replacing. I have also this week helped to put in orders with our suppliers for general things like new nets, new machine balls, pitching machines, radar guns, ordered extra newspapers, had our Top Recruit magazine sent to the publisher, camp shirts, and ordered the new equipment necessary for the testing. The packing list I created is below: The company I work for is called the National Fastpitch Coaches Association. Throughout the year we do different things and run different sorts of events. However, the summer is our recruiting camp season. The NFCA runs recruiting camps in different areas that allow incoming 8th graders through freshly graduated seniors attend and showcase their skills for college coaches.
We open the camps to any coaches who want to attend regardless of their membership with us. We create coaches booklets, which have the athletes profiles in them for recruiting purposes. The process to prepare for these camps is extensive and this year I was put in charge of it. This is a new task for me and in addition to that we have new measurable testing to implement into the camps. What I mean by measurable testing is a station during the camp where the athletes are tested on raw skills such as vertical jump and shuttle run times. In the past we have used a 3rd party company to do the testing and report back to us but this year we have decided to do it on our own and actually change up some of the tests and standards. The NFCA also hired a new Director of Events so the whole camp process is a bit different for the 2014 season. My first job is to work with the Director of Events and the Director of Education on preparing the new measurable testing. We all had a meeting to decide how many attempts of each the athletes would get, how much time we would need to run them through and what equipment we would need to do this successfully. This required multiple meetings and some research with collegiate strength and conditioning coaches. Because we were going to hire someone of that nature in the local area where the camp is to help facilitate this we wanted input on how to make it successful. Below are the NFCA Measurable Skills: 1. CATCHER’S POP TIMES Catchers get three opportunities to receive a pitch and throw to second base. The second baseman must catch the ball for a time to be recorded. 2. PITCHER’S SPEEDS AND SPIN MEASUREMENT Pitchers rotate through 10 stations and throw approximately four pitches at each station. The pitches requested are as follows: curve, drop, rise, screw, fastball/change-up, best pitch and a speed/spin measurement. 3. AGILITY The athlete starts on the clock and runs five yards in one direction, changes direction and runs 10 yards, and changes direction and runs five more yards. Time is recorded using a stopwatch and/or a timing eye. 4. SPEED The athlete starts behind a line, sprints 20 yards and the time is recorded using a stopwatch and/or timing eye. 5. THROWING VELOCITY (OVERHAND) The athlete throws overhand into a net and this throw is measured in mph using a radar gun. Approximately four attempts. 6. MUSCULAR STRENGTH The athlete squeezes a grip strength dynamometer for 2-3 seconds to get this measurement of muscular strength, three attempts. 7. BALL EXIT SPEED The athlete hits a ball off tee into a net. Ball exit speed is measured with radar gun. Approximately 5 attempts. 8. VERTICAL JUMP (JUMP MAT) The athlete stands on the mat, loads down and swings both arms up and jumps as high as possible. Jump mat operator records all three attempts. The last two days I have been working out at the University of Louisville's spring Field Hockey tournament. I have never seen a field hockey game in my life until this weekend and I learned so much. I was again assigned to work this event as part of a small team. I just wore jeans and a Louisville shirt for the weekend. The guidelines were to not wear anything from another school and to have the "3 B's" covered (breasts, butt, and belly.. in case you were wondering). I found that to be humorous and one I will save away for future use.
Once arriving on site I met up with the assistant field hockey coach and she told me I was in charge of the score board, clock and air horn. The regular clock/stadium horn was on the fritz. I was glad to have something that would keep me busy the whole time as well as still be able to see the game. I had to work with the umpires for when to turn the clock on and also when players got penalties. The players would come and sit at the chair next to my table and I told them when to go back in dependent on what color card they got for their penalty. It was a long day but I had fun, and as I said I learned a lot about a sport that was foreign to me previously. The one thing I am starting to pick up on abut interns at the Louisville is that they have plenty of them! There are always people around to help. This wasn't the case on Saturday which allowed me to work the entire time and not feel useless but on Sunday I felt there were too many people there for the job which resulted in a bit of standing around. On Sunday I was in charge of taking teams to locker rooms in the Student Activities Center which was a short walk from the fields. When a team would lose or were done for the day I went to find the coach and told them I would be their escort to the locker rooms. It was a cool experience and I'm looking forward to working Field Hockey again sometime. For my first experience with the University of Louisville I was lucky enough to get to help out with the NCAA Women's basketball regional tournament. The teams in the tournament were Louisville, Maryland, Tennessee, and LSU. It was held at the KFC Yum! Center here in downtown Louisville. I was to wear khaki pants and they gave me an NCAA polo when I got there. My internship supervisor was not on site at that time but I was aware of that before arriving. I was part of an event team that was headed up by a graduate student, not unlike myself.
I was there to help out with operations for the day. It was an all day thing on the Sunday of the tournament. I got there early while the teams were scheduled to do shoot around but nobody decided to take advantage of that so it was pretty quiet early on. Once teams started showing up I escorted them to their respective locker rooms. Once teams were all on site I switched gears a bit and took on the role of some court side duties which included making sure the teams had enough towels on the bench, gathering up the dirty ones, taking the racks of balls on and off the court, and just making sure everyone had what they needed. It wasn't glamourous by any means but those are the things that need doing. Sometimes operations is doing the things that nobody notices but necessary things. I'm sure people would notice it they were not done. This was a really cool first event experience. I have worked events before, don't get me wrong, but this was a much different kind of behind the scenes experience. When we weren't doing anything we got to watch the games court side so I can't complain about that! |