This is the day, this is the day...

        This is the day that the Lord has made.  We will rejoice and be glad in it.  This is the day that I will finally have time to completely dry my hair.  My new goal is to wake up to my alarm and NOT hit the snooze button.  When I can get my morning routine down to a science, and know exactly how long it takes to get to class, work, or wherever, I tend to start waking up later and later.  This morning, I woke up at 8 which gives me just enough time to shower, partially dry my hair, and run out the door...a frazzled start is not the best start to the day, but it's one that I've unfortunately become accustomed to in the past couple of years.  Someone ask me how my new wake up plan is going in about a week.
        LGA came in for a meeting today and we talked about the media plan for the Meineke Car Care Bowl.  They gave us a chart of the months leading up to the day, and the different media that we will be using to promote the game: billboards, radio, TV, etc... and the rough budget for the plan.  This year we are advertising for the bowl later than last year because we want each game, the Bowl and the Championship, to have their moment to shine and give the consumer an opportunity to give undivided attention to each game.  Lisa from LGA gave us the idea to go to mashable.com which is a social media website that offers a wealth of information on the most effective techniques for the usage of sites like facebook and twitter.  What an awesome resource.
        The rest of the day was focused on finalizing several things for the Quail Hollow luncheon tomorrow.  After doing some office projects, we headed out to the venue, 12 Football helmets in hand to set up for tomorrow.  (I will put pictures up in my next blog).  The country club was gorgeous...and a lot bigger than our country club in Greensboro (obviously).  It was actually just added to the rotation of courses for the PGA and will host the tournament in 2017.  Anyways, we weren't sure how we were going to decorate the tables because they were 10 tops and you don't want them to look blank, but you are creating a room for a largely male audience.  We brought the ACC football helmets, and 2 Bowl Game helmets (to mark the 2 head tables) and used a couple of black table toppers-essentially large black dinner napkins- to dress the tables.  Simple centerpiece worked because the 10 tops were actually kind of small.  I'm really excited about tomorrow and meeting more Leatherheads and Football Legend, Bob Griese.  I'm not excited about the good ol' southern food on the menu.  I've been accepting free food for the past month and it is starting to take a toll on me.  My body just needs a salad!
        Tonight I went over to Lauren Patterson and Christie Schaus' apartment for dinner which was great.  Carrie, Caroline Plunkett, and their other roommate came too, and it was nice to just be around friends that I am familiar with.  It is so weird that we sit around and spend  a vast majority of our time discussing our jobs.  Definitely different from discussions we would have over dinner in College.  Look at us...we are all grown up!  My aunt Mary came tonight to spend the night before she flies out to LA with Uncle Oscar tomorrow.  She recently had surgery and so she got to show and tell me all about that.  Nursing friends, you'd be so proud.  She is an AWESOME cook and I got her to try one of my biscuits from the other night, and she liked it.  If Mary likes the food I cook/bake I will chalk that up to a success.  So good to sit with her tonight and just hang out for a bit!

Orientation into Raycom

        This morning I woke up with a friend request from Michael Kelly, Associate Commissioner for the ACC-head of communications and football operations, and this job became all the more real.  The day started off with a staff picture and company luau...which was odd on a second  day of work, but also an interesting orientation with the staff.  I had no idea how many people worked at Raycom until I was standing in front of the Raycom bus, preparing to take a picture with about 40 people (don't you just love the awkward jokes people make when they are waiting around for the photographer to snap the photo?). 
        The group that I work with is a small one.  Charlotte Collegiate Football consists of Will Webb-executive director, Courtney Knowling-Events and Operations, Will Pitts-Director of Sales, and Sarah Stankavage & me-the interns.  We also work closely with a couple members of Raycom Sports: Chad Swofford- Director of New Business Development and Abby Christmas in sales.  I'm excited to work with a close group of people because it will give us an opportunity as interns to participate in almost all aspects of the bowl game and the championship game.  We spoke with Courtney at length today about how to make this internship our own and get involved in things that we are most interested in.  This means I'll be able to focus on projects that are in my direct interest area and even try out things that I am not really familiar with.  For instance, Sarah is really interested in the production/broadcast journalism side, which is something that I'm not particularly attracted to career wise (i am more interested in promotion and event management), but think it's pretty cool none the less.   Courtney does some work on the side with the Bobcats and the Panthers doing some crew work, so Sarah asked if we could shadow her and I think I will probably tag along, just to see what it's all about...and I think it would be a great opportunity to meet some other people in the sports industry. 
           As far as today's tasks went, we spent a good amount of time coming up with our plan for the social media tools we will be using.  We have facebook (Meineke Care Care Bowl & ACC Championship) and Twitter (Meineke Car Care Bowl & ACC Championship) accounts and came up with goals for the different accounts.  Goals included raising numbers of followers (100 for each twitter account...yikes!) and raising awareness of each game around the Charlotte community and some strategies to meet the goals for both twitter and facebook.  After speaking with Courtney and Megan Parete (who is a Clemson graduate, did this internship last year and introduced me to the position), we are still trying to decide whether a joint intern blog will be beneficial...especially if we are each keeping personal blogs on our own for this experience. We'll see how that turns out.  Courtney also asked us to head up the Gifts Committee for the Leatherheads...more on the committee and the Leatherheads in posts to come, but I'm really excited about the committee and working with this group of people so I just wanted to mention it!  Finally, we had a meeting with Luquire George Andrews, a marketing communications firm in Charlotte, to discuss one of the marketing strategies we will be using to promote the games this football season.  The project has not been launched yet, but from what I've heard it's something that I am interested in getting more heavily involved in so we'll see how that plays out.  At the end of the day, Chad and Will Pitts sat down with Sarah and me and explained a lot to us about the business side of Raycom Sports, sponsorships, etc...and it was a bit overwhelming but all good information to take in!  I promise that as I continue to write, I will find a way to consolidate my posts but for right now I am just too excited to leave anything out...whether frivolous or not! 
       
        
          

To catch everyone up:

Hey friends...thanks for reading!  Overall, my hopes for this blog are to keep a digital log of my experiences as a recent graduate and young professional in the field of sport promotion.  I want to actively participate in the learning process of my new job and feel like a blog is a great way to hold myself accountable to this goal.  I also wanted an avenue to share my experiences with you: my friends and family, or whoever else might be interested.  This is an exciting time for me.   I am certain that I am about embark on a journey that I will not soon forget, and would love for you all to share in these experiences with me through these blog entries.

The past couple of months have been bittersweet scary, chaotic, and exciting for me as I graduated from Clemson in one of the worst job markets our country has seen.  For those who don’t know, I graduated without a job, as did many of my friends, and without any certain plans.  I knew I wanted a job in sport promotion, and I knew that those opportunities were few and far between, but could not broaden my field of search out of fear of losing sight of my true ambitions.  I was fortunate enough to be able to ride out my lease in Clemson this past summer and continue my work in the Men’s Basketball office thanks to the generosity of our new head coach Brad Brownell and his staff, who had no reason to keep me on…they had only known me for a brief period of time.  As summer crept by, and job opportunities seemed to slip through the cracks I realized that I might have to come to terms with the unthinkable: that after 4 years of living on my own, I was going to have to move back in with the Parents.  I was getting used to the idea and trying to line things up in Greensboro for when I returned and then one morning I woke up, sitting straight up in my bed (getting up for me is usually a much more drawn out process) and thinking ‘I cannot move back home…my mom will make me throw away half of my clothes!’. 

As trivial as the thought was, it was the first of several events that led to the start of a career path.  That same day I received an email from a college friend and classmate, Leslie Farmer, saying that she was leaving her current position at the South Carolina Technology and Aviation Center (former Donaldson Center in Greenville, SC) to pursue an opportunity with meals on wheels and that she was looking for a qualified replacement.  The job was not in sports…in fact it was the farthest thing from it.  It was also not a full time position, but it was an opportunity to manage the public relations and Communications efforts for SCTAC and seemed to certainly be the type of job that would open doors to future careers in general PR.  I was unsure about the job, but even less sure about moving back home, so I decided to meet with Jody Bryson, CEO of SCTAC.  After meeting with Jody, I felt completely at peace with my decision to jump on board with their team.  I got the job on Friday, started Monday (my close friend Channing was so great to let me crash with her for the week), and I had so much fun in my first week learning about the job and SCTAC.  I never thought something so technological in nature could be so interesting to me, and I called my parents every night to tell them how much I LOVED what I was doing.   

Coincidentally, on my way home from work after my third day, I got a call from Will Webb, Executive Director of Charlotte Collegiate Football, offering me an internship position.  Charlotte Collegiate Football is a nonprofit that runs the ACC Championship Football Game and the Meineke Car Care Bowl game, and is located in the Raycom Sports office.  I began going through their application process in February which ended for me in the middle of July with the understanding that I would not be interning with them.  When I got the call, my immediate reaction was that, because of my job at SCTAC, I would have to let the opportunity pass me by.  I thought there was no way I could leave a job I had already taken, especially one that I enjoy.  I spent the rest of the night praying and speaking to family about the situation.    The general consensus among a few of my close friends and family members was that ultimately, this was a business opportunity and that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I let the opportunity of my dreams slip through my fingers.  Ultimately I had to come to the decision that the position with Charlotte Collegiate Football was an opportunity that I simply could not pass up.  This is the opportunity that I have been praying for and I knew that if I didn’t seize it, I may never be offered a chance to break into sport promotion and pursue my passion again.  All that to say, I went into work on my fourth day and quit my job.  It was one of the tasks that I have dreaded most in my time as a young adult, but Jody Bryson could not have been more gracious to me.  He told me that it was exciting that I was getting the chance to pursue my dream career and even asked to stay in touch.  I will never forget the unnecessary kindness that he bestowed on me as it allowed me to pursue my dreams in full force, without guilt, and also reassured me that the decision I had made was, in fact, the right decision for me. 

I started interning today and don’t think there was one moment where I didn’t have a smile on my face.  Even though the day was filled with simple tasks and typical ‘first day of work duties’ like setting up my new computer, meeting the team I will be working with, and touring the Raycom Building, I enjoyed every minute of it.  Sarah, the other intern, and I got to familiarize ourselves with the Meineke Car Care Bowl Game and ACC Championship Bowl Game social media sites that we will be heavily involved with (you can follow both on twitter: @ACCfootballCLT and @MeinekeBowlGame) and also tried to figure out the new seeding and selections for the 2010-2011 bowl games…we are still not sure if we got all the information right!  We will definitely be taking a second and probably third look at that tomorrow.  We also got to learn about a lot of the promotional events we will be working with, which is really exciting!  The only moment that I did not enjoy was when one of the team members asked me whether I had a Blackberry or a Droid, and I had to ask him to insert a third option.  I quickly realized that I was the only one at the table without one of the two communication devices, and was immediately aware of my dyer need for a smart phone! 

Overall, the day was great.  I’m living with the Conrads right now (My aunt and uncle) and Carrie and Ryan (cousins) are still here so it has been fun getting to spend time with the family during the fabulous dinners they have prepared for the past two nights!  I will be updating this blog regularly, but do not anticipate a post ever being this long again…just wanted to catch everyone up at once.  Excited for my second day tomorrow!