December at Champion Schools

Write a final reflection and evaluation of your applied study experience. What did you learn from this experience? How did you grow? What skills did you gain? Do you feel that it was a positive experience, why or why not?

This experience has been valuable to me in several ways. I feel like having had an internship the previous semester allowed me to take advantage of everything it had to offer. I learned about operation of a privately funded, public school. I learned about how the school started and the vision for where it is supposed to go. I gained some team work and communication skills through my interaction with the other 25 coaches and faculty. I gained some technical skills with social media and organizational tools like our Google calendars. My PR and communication skills were probably the most developed in my time working. This was a valuable and positive experience for me because I was able to do so many things during my last semester and still have the time to be at this school 4 times a week. Having my last season as a collegiate athlete and the games each week coincide with the students own flag football schedule was a surreal experience for both of us I'm sure. I was able to basically intern for two companies, Champion Schools and ProVentures from Virginia. I've been offered a position next semester at the school along with a raise. The CEO and my mentor have proposed a paid trip to Virginia to work with the team there on an actual sports marketing project for me to interact a little more closely and develop the other skills of my major which is the business and marketing discipline. Perhaps just as importantly, I had the chance to look at what a career in coaching and athletics could look like shadowing the AD at Champion Schools. Maybe in 15-20 years I could return to my high school or ASU to assume an administrative position in athletics.