As a Sport Management major in my junior year, I have found my career goal to be a professor quite different than the career goals of most of my undergraduate peers in the UConn Sport Management program. Nonetheless, I have found that the UConn Sport Management faculty is extremely supportive when it comes to helping students reach their careers aspirations, regardless of the capacity. At the suggestion of Dr. Joseph Cooper, I applied for the UConn IDEA Grant, an undergraduate research grant that allows students to pursue an original idea or other project. I was approved for the grant earlier this month and will begin conducting research this coming summer.

My IDEA Grant will seek to determine the social interactions and other socioeconomic factors that contribute to a high school baseball player going to college or signing a professional contract. I first became interested in this process while interning for a baseball agency in Florida last summer. Most of my time as an intern was spent attending high school travel baseball tournaments, allowing me to see some of the top high school baseball players in the country. The guidance of Dr. Cooper and UConn Sport Management graduate student Charles Macaulay helped me to materialize my narratives as an intern into a feasible research question.

I would like to thank the UConn Sport Management faculty and students along with the UConn IDEA Grant program for giving me the chance to pursue my career interests in sport management research. As my career progresses, I will be able to trace back any success I have directly to UConn and more specifically the Sport Management program. My experience as a member of the UConn Sport Management community and as a student manager of the UConn baseball team has allowed me to expand my passion for and knowledge of sport. The educational value of the coursework, the positive classroom environment created by each faculty member, and the various possibilities for sport-related work experience provide any student in the UConn Sport Management program with a truly unique opportunity.