Category: Mentorship Journal

And now for something completely different. In addition to working on Life After the Games for the ICC, I am loaned out to the Tiffin University Sports Management program to assist in its promotion. The three interviews I did earlier with former students in the program were a part of that effort. I have been asked to take a look at the current Sports Management webpage and offer my input on how it can be improved. Specifically, Dr. Tiell wants to be able to add those testimonials onto the site. I have done my review, written a few things down, and will send those to Dr. Tiell. My thought is that there could be some streamlining of the content by combining certain sections, then the testimonials can be included without the information becoming too overwhelming.

I live for the opportunity to share my ideas with others. My ideas are not always the greatest and that becomes evident as soon as some of them come out of my mouth, but that is the beauty of the brainstorming process. There is always this pressure to have the best ideas but even through the ones that sound totally crazy come thoughts that just might work. I do not know whether using that type of approach is encouraged that much in a business setting, and it ought to be. I am fortunate to have aligned myself with people who do support out-of-the-box thinking, as that has allowed me to hone really in on creating effective messages.

I spoke last night about getting into the details of a work of art and that is exactly what is happening with this brochure. The first e-mail came from Josh at 1:47 this morning with an attachment including what the copy should read on one panel. Seven hours later, Dr. Tiell responds with changes to what Josh had written. Additionally, I needed to find an image of a medal that looks similar to what Josh drew and sent to me. What I ended up with was not exactly like that drawing but pretty close. I made all the changes then sent the latest copy over for review. It really does not bother me, that is what I am there for, to handle the edits, send those changes back, then repeat as necessary. We all want the Life After the Games program to look its best, whether it’s the actual content of the course or the promotional content of the brochure. So whatever needs to be done to make that happen, I am all for it.

All four of us are really the International Cultural Consortium at this juncture. We are the ones making this product happen, slowly but surely, and we are the ones going over each other’s work and providing comments to improve Life After the Games. It is gratifying for me to be a big fish in a small pond, so to speak, because I am not just doing a task, I have somewhat of a say in how it is presented. That is really all I could ask for.

After our Thursday meeting, I received a message from Dr. Tiell indicating that there had been nearly three hundred edits to the Life After the Games course, an “extremely high” amount. Her explanation to the marketing department at Tiffin was that several people were reviewing the program (B. Tiell, personal communication, August 6, 2020). Liston–technically, he’s Dr. Bochette but everyone refers to him as Liston–had a response that I thought was pretty good. He agreed that three hundred was an insane amount of edits, “but they are part of the polishing process.” The next part is especially good because he recalls his own experience as an artist: “When I draw a picture it takes forever to finish the details” (L. Bochette, personal communication, August 6, 2020).

On that note, I received a separate e-mail this morning from Josh notifying how far the brochure has come since we started. Of course, he said a few more changes would have to be made. One, in particular, was changing the photo on the front of the brochure or adding a medal that looked like what he had hand-drawn on the brochure. I am finishing up my review of the LAG units this evening, so I plan to tackle that tomorrow. To piggyback off what Liston said, we are polishing the brochure for maximum effect and the details are going to take a while. I have made no bones about that in past journal entries. I understand the purpose of revising and revising a document until it is perfect, but it is something that I do not do all that often.

Tonight was dedicated once again to looking over the Life After the Games units. A bit of a long undertaking and we are under a deadline to have edits submitted by the end of the week. At the same time, we want to be very thorough in making sure the appearance of the program is on the up and up. We will have one more meeting tomorrow before the due date. Again, we get closer and closer to rolling out an actual product, even though it doesn’t feel like it some days. I am just about to the end of my run with the course, I anticipate finishing it up tomorrow. That is really about the extent of the Life After the Games review.

What else I have going on in my wheelhouse is the brochure. It is amazing how much that document has changed. It started yellow and black but through edits became red and white. Yet the concept has stayed largely the same over time. I have another version to Josh, we will see what he has to say about it. Everything else is just kind of wait and see right now, with the main focus being to get the course itself ready to go. Once that is accomplished, it will all just sort of fall into place. I keep learning more about this exciting program the ICC is going to offer and the more I learn, the more I like it. We are headed in the right direction here.

After fixing up the ICC website and listening to the interviews I conducted, I am back to looking at the units for the Life After the Games course itself. Friday is the deadline to make recommendations on edits for the content. We were to have a meeting today about the course but there were scheduling conflicts so we will shoot for our normal Thursday meeting. It is exciting that we have made it this far in the process, even though we still have a long way to go. Thinking back to those first few units, I will say that the LAG curriculum looks very promising. I never played a sport in high school or college, but for those who have competed at that level or beyond, I think the material will really speak to them. I am not just saying this to promote the product, I have been through it myself and believe it to be true.

Without giving too much away, I can tell you a little about what the focus of LAG is. The first part deals with what to do when an athlete knows it’s time to hang it up. Then there are the ways to prepare for a transition out of sport and into the workforce. The purpose of the course is consistent throughout, demonstrating how athletes’ skills in competition are beneficial to them in an office setting. Let’s be realistic, similarities do exist between sports and work, perhaps the most prominent is that desire to be the best there is. This course really will help athletes position themselves for success beyond sport.

I am finally done with making the recommended changes to the ICC website. It was a lot of work, but when you accomplish something of that magnitude, it feels pretty good. It feels good when you accomplish anything, especially when it is a task you have never done before and doubted your abilities. I must admit that it is something I have struggled with my entire adult life. I do not want to delve too deep into my past or psyche, but I suspect I have long suffered from impostor syndrome. That is an individual who believes that he or she is not good at what they do despite evidence to the contrary (American Bar Association, 2018).

I realize it is a bit of a risky move to divulge such information about myself in a professional website portfolio. Why do I do it then? Because I feel the need to acknowledge this is an issue I have had to deal with while demonstrating that I am working through it with the actions I have taken: pursuing an MBA and doing this mentorship. I got to this point because of my abilities and not despite them. Of course, I am incredibly fortunate to have come across people who are there to push me through adversity. Having that support system and a mentor are both critical to handling the feeling of impostorism (American Bar Association, 2018). Let’s face it, nobody is perfect. How you resolve those issues is what sets you apart from others, and I am determined to learn from my mistakes and move forward in accordance.

Reference

American Bar Association. (2018, October). Imposter syndrome? Eight tactics to combat the anxiety. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2018/october-2018/tell-yourself-_yet–and-other-tips-for-overcoming-impostor-syndr/

Now that I have the website issue all sorted out, I can go ahead and start making changes revisions to it based on discussions I have had with Dr. Tiell. I am happy that we can move forward with this. There was some copy to rewrite and also the images needed modifying, primarily the biographies of our wonderful partners Liston, Josh, and Dr. Tiell. Those images have proven to be the trickiest so far because, for whatever reason, they are right on top of each other without any space in between them when published on the website but I know I have left space for them. Just one of those odd nuances of building pages, I suppose.

Without a doubt, the website has been the most challenging project of the mentorship. Before this, I had never essentially administered an entire website that was not a blog. With my own personal sites, it never mattered how silly the material was or if a picture was too big or too small. It is a lot different when you are building pages with the intent to drive sales. Everything has to be in its place, and that is why I have spent hours fine-tuning the ICC website. I am only partway through the suggested edits after this evening. The rest I will have to take on tomorrow. Now I hope I do not come across as complaining, I am just trying to explain how important the process is to what we are doing and the complications that go along with it.

Notes of my interview with Lorenzo Guess from Michigan State athletics caps off the busiest month I have had in this mentorship. At just over 15 minutes, this is pretty much right in the middle of the three interviews I did in terms of length, though due to the sheer volume of our conversation, I guess for lack of a better word, the transcription process took almost as long as for Nathan McCarter. Lorenzo’s story is that he has been with the Spartans since 2012 and is an associate coach in strength and conditioning plus the director of player enrichment. So he not only gets the players ready for the game, Lorenzo gets them ready for a future beyond sport. The latter, he said, has been a topic of discussion with his players amid the pandemic and questions about whether there will even be a college football season later this year.

“Getting an MBA helped me come up with different plans to help the guys be more successful after college and help me think of ‘how can I lead a program, how can I lead a company?’ by taking the different courses,” Lorenzo told me. He came across Tiffin University because his now-wife had accepted a graduate position with its track and field team. Here’s the kicker: Lorenzo is now going for his doctorate in education from the United States Sports Academy with an emphasis in Sports Management. His dissertation is on developing student-athletes for future success. Well, he is certainly in the right position for that at the moment.

It is Thursday, which means a conference call with the group at ICC. We had another productive session with action items for each of us. Mine will be to modify the website and supply the video script that I rewrote. The others have higher-level tasks to complete regarding the implementation of Life After the Games‘ strategy. Meanwhile, I have also finished typing up the interview I did with Emily Egbers of the Cincinnati Reds for Tiffin Sports Management. This one was a little shorter at seven minutes, 25 seconds, so not as long to transcribe either. Still, she has a good story. Emily’s role at the Reds is Fundraising and Operations Coordinator, which means she oversees the 50/50 raffle at each home game plus youth baseball camps. Emily joined the staff after serving as an intern for two years. Her undergraduate comes from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

“I knew when I graduated I was going to go back (and receive a Master’s degree), it was just a matter of when,” she explained. “After talking to some of my undergrad professors and my bosses, they all told me, ‘go back before it’s too late.'” The reason Emily did so was to broaden her possibilities for the future, and she recommends that anyone who wants to pursue an MBA in Sports Management do so (E. Egbers, personal communication, July 21, 2020). I enjoyed this interview so much that I highlighted the entire section of notes I had written on it. Thanks once more to Emily for her great insight.