Written by: Patrick Rowley
My name is Patrick Rowley and I am a 20-year-old Sport Management major from Newtown, Conn. with an interest in data analytics in the sport industry. This summer, I was an intern with the University of Connecticut Athletic Administration, working for eight different sports teams during my time with the department. My office was located directly inside the Hugh S. Greer Fieldhouse in the middle of the UConn campus, directly adjacent to the Athletic Business Office. During my time working in the business office, I got to know the head of the athletic administration, Kim Gedney, quite well and she told me that she could use another intern this summer and asked if I would help.
The biggest aspect of my job this summer was helping with coach’s travel for recruiting and convention purposes. This includedfinding their preferred flight times, booking hotels and rental cars, handling travel reimbursements and making last minute adjustments for coaches when they need changes on the fly. However, this job was also interesting in terms of seeing what it is like to be on the bottom of the totem pole of sorts in an organization and seeing the eclectic nature of tasks that were passed down to me. This could be as mundane as walking across campus to drop off a form, helping determine how much money needs to be added to certain accounting lines in order to pay invoices and helping to choose and order apparel to give out at promotional golf tournaments. This job has truly given me an entire additional perspective of the sports industry and having both played and coached in the past, it was fascinating to see all of the grunt work that goes into holding game at the division one level. I have also made some tremendous connections in my office, other departments in UConn and among UConn’s incredibly talented coaching staff.
My internship with the UConn Athletic Administration helped me learn how to think on my feet and react to crises in a calm and timely manner. I learned a tremendous amount of information this summer and ultimately, I think that this experience was the one that will help me the most in the future. Although I loved interning in this office, I think that I want my future in athletics to be on the data analytics side, particularly for baseball. This is something I have been slowly realizing for years, but I wanted to try out many different potential paths before throwing myself into a specific field completely and I now think that I am ready for that. I have been in contact with the Baseball Info Solutions company, based out of Allentown, PA, and have reached a tentative agreement with management regarding an internship next summer that I cannot wait for.