I have had many experiences throughout the past few months. The experience I initially expected to have was cut short due to a situation with the staff. This led me to actively seek out new and exciting opportunities. Luckily, I was able to utilize the friendships I made and the lessons it taught me moving into the new roles. The chance to work with so many organizations and people ended up being a blessing in disguise. How often does someone go into the situation expecting one experience, but comes out with many? Although I was initially upset and worried about the change in plans, this pushed me to think outside the box and push myself outside of my comfort zone. I feel more energized and ready to continue taking on the sports industry throughout the rest of my career journey due to this sports internship experience.
Final day!!!! I am excited, tired, and a little sad to officially be wrapping this up. However, I’m excited to get the excel document over the staff so that can review it and hopefully utilize it for next year’s planning sessions. I finished up adding in data and made sure that all the numbers made sense. I took a bit of time to think about anything I was missing or any other data that might be helpful when making decisions. Once I did that, I made it pretty! There was absolutely no reason for me to do this other than the fact that I wanted to and I think it’s easier to read when the sections are broken up by colored headers. Also, it was fun and after staring at numbers all day every day, this was entertaining for me!
I went ahead and forwarded it over to the staff and am excited to hear their response. I’m sure they’ll say “wow that’s a lot of information, you okay?” initially… But I think it’ll grow on them! Overall, this was not the way I anticipated this internship/mentorship going. There were some learning curves and a few speed bumps (or boulders) along the way, but ultimately I am happy with the experience. Although I don’t know that I’ll ever get back into the sports industry, it was good to be back for the limited time I was. Had the pandemic not happened and life thrown 15 curveballs, I would still be happily working for the Reds Community Fund. However, it did happen and I have to be happy where I’m at. I know I’ll always have a home at the Reds and a family who is willing to help me out when I need it the most (like when I need 200 hours and I can’t complete them because my mentor got fired…) I was excited to get back into it after yesterday. I spent quite a long day staring at my computer trying to get this done in the next few days. I continued on the data tracking that I was doing yesterday. Yesterday I had focused primarily on the sales numbers, but today I switched over to volunteers. Again, I had to redact most of the information for privacy purposes, but the generalities are still there – just no names or numbers! This was an interesting part. It’s fun to see how much each person brought into the Community Fund over the year and how much their contributions impacted the organization overall. Even volunteers who only did a few games throughout the year played such a large role. As I was going through this, I decided to craft a thank you message for every volunteer who came. I wanted to make sure they felt appreciated and I forwarded that onto Matthew and Sara as well to send out. I wasn’t sure on the exact number for the year (as it usually fluctuates before they nail down the total), so I left that part blank for them to fill in.
Dear ___, Thank you so much for your continued support of the Reds Community Fund over the 2021 season. Due to your generosity and time commitment, the Split the Pot program raised an incredible ____. This could not have been done without you and your help! This money will go directly to helping boys and girls of all ages continue to play the games of baseball and softball in the Cincinnati area. Be on the lookout for next year’s signup sheet in January of next year! Thanks, The Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Reds Community Fund Staff Only a few days left of this mentorship and I can’t believe it’s already coming to a close. Although this has been exhausting, it felt really good to get back into the sports scene. I have missed the fast-paced, adrenaline of it all. Today I worked on wrapping up the season. I started by finishing up the excel sheet I had been working on throughout the year. I wanted to take this and build it into something bigger – something that they could continue to work off of for years to come. This would help to take a holistic approach to the year and see just what was most popular and what could potentially be done away with. Whether they utilized it for next season or not, it was something I had wanted to do in my time but never quite figured out how to get it done. But hey, better late than never! I have attached that excel document in the projects portion of my website (again, I had to redact some of the information for privacy purposes), but I’m excited for people to view my work!
I took the data collected throughout the season for both, volunteers and sales numbers, and compiled it all together. I wanted to make it easy to read, aesthetically pleasing, and beneficial for anyone who used it. For many, this is probably an information overload, but to me, this was so much fun! I didn’t get all the way through it today, as I think it’ll take the last few days of the mentorship hours, but I did get a good head start. Well, the Reds are officially out of it. Fans have stopped showing up in the flocks that they were. Although the loyalists are still out there, they aren’t nearly as loud as they were previously. I once again showed up two hours early and helped to get everything set up. Today, I checked in all the volunteers and walked them to their locations and gave them the training on the machines and how to sell. I felt bad for leaving a little early during the last game, so I was excited to be able to take a little more responsibility this time around. The Reds ended up losing 2-9, so the fans weren’t super interested in buying Split the Pot tickets. I ended up staying until after the game and helped to shut everything down. We made sure everything was plugged in and that the handheld machines were ready to go for the final couple games. This was my last game of the season, so I wanted to make sure I could help out as much as possible. My last few hours are going to be spent doing work from home stuff. I have some ideas on how I want to wrap up the season and get them best prepared for next season. Although the Reds did lose, this was a good game to end on! I was able to help and really felt like I made my mark on the program, even given my limited number of games worked!
After I realized a few different statistics measures that I think would be beneficial, I requested the data from the beginning of the year. Today, I focused on adding those numbers into the spreadsheet I was already working off of to try and get more information. I also talked to him to see what information I am allowed to post on here for the class. He didn’t want me to use the information for this year, but didn’t mind if I used the information from when I was working there in 2018. I have added that into the projects tab on the website. Although the information on there is drastically different than what they have changed the program to this year, it does show what I was framing the spreadsheet towards. There are also different statistics I’m tracking, which I will continue to describe as I think of it.
After getting through all of the information I wanted to add, I went back through and continued to review what other teams track to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, or to see if it sparked any other ideas in my mind. Although this isn’t the most fun, and I’m definitely ready to be back to doing nothing after work, I am trying to enjoy being back in the sports industry. I never thought I would leave, so it’s definitely something I love doing. I have another game to work next week, so back to the stadium after this! Another day, another Reds game! The weather is gorgeous today and it’s starting to feel a little like fall. The Reds are about to ruin their shot at the playoffs, shocker! But, I am still excited to go and help the Community Fund. Although I’m very thankful that they are giving me more hours to make sure I am able to get my full hours completed, I am getting really exhausted with the late nights at the stadium and early mornings with my finance job. My brain is zonked!
The Reds ended up beating the Pirates 9-5 and the prevalence of runs made the stadium exciting. Although there weren’t as many fans in attendance as when they were on the road to the playoffs, they’re still not mathematically counted out, so fans are still showing up loud as ever. I didn’t sell as many tickets as I had hoped and my up-selling techniques that almost always work, weren’t working for me today. I was feeling a little out of it, and by the end of the night, I was ready to get back home. I didn’t end up staying until the end of the game to help clean up, because all I could think about was my bed. However, I’ll be back again in the next few weeks for one final game, so I’ll make it up to them then! The Reds are in exciting territory. It’s looking like they may actually make the playoffs. The fans are pumped up and the employees are preparing for the potential of a postseason. However, as a seasoned Reds fan, I am preparing for sadness. There have been far too many times that I have seen this story!
Fortunately, tonight was not one of those nights!! The Reds won 3-1. I showed up at the ballpark at my usual time of 2 hours before first pitch. I went to the Split the Pot booth and helped the employees get set up for the game. I plugged in all the machines and made sure to get the volunteer list ready. Once that was done, we made sure to get the stations set up and the kiosk tv’s turned on. By the time we got through everything, the other volunteers were beginning to arrive. I was able to sit in the home base today and sell. This allowed me to run point for the program while the other employees went and got their dinner and took a break. It allowed me a little more responsibility and gave me a chance to chat with some of the other volunteers and get to know them and how they heard about the program. A few of the volunteers were actually there because of the emails I had sent out to the student organizations! It was exciting to see the work I put in was paying off for the organization! After the incident with the coaching position for East Central, I talked to my previous boss and asked if I could get some more time with the Reds. I figured they would gladly take me up on that offer, but I wanted to make sure I still had enough work that I was able to take care of without running out. He was really excited to hear that I was willing to take more on. They still hadn’t hired for my previous role, so he was more than grateful to hand off some of that (and let me take a few things he does, to make sure I was getting some other experiences). Today, I was forwarded some data from the past few games and updated the spreadsheets appropriately. I am not able to post many of the items I worked on for the team, as it has sensitive information and I was asked not to. Ideally, what I was doing was taking the number of every ticket “type” that was sold during every series. Using this at the end of the year, they are able to determine if they should make any changes to the pricing structure or if there should be an emphasis on one ticket price based on the numbers that are bought. This helps the marketing team as well. I also take a look at the handheld machine numbers that each volunteer has, and make sure to take note of how much they’re selling and at what location they were assigned to. It makes assigning volunteers to certain sections easier if you know the sections that make the most money on certain days. This last statistic is something I just realized they should be tracking, and had to request the information from the previous games to add. I will focus on that first during the next work from home day.
Today was a very weird day. I was absolutely exhausted after work, but drove out to the high school for practice. I’m starting to get really worn out with everything going on, but understand I only have about a month left for my hours to be completed. I was already in a weird mood when I got there and then there was an odd vibe in the air when I arrived. It wasn’t tension, but you could tell something was off in the gym. It was a good Saturday with the j.v. team and varsity was really helpful throughout the day. It was a relatively normal practice. We began with serve receive and did a few hitting drills for some offensive efficiency focus. The end of the practice was capped with a scrimmage and 5-minute tip drill, per the request of the girls. I didn’t mention to Laker that I felt a little odd about the day, but quickly realized as soon as I left that there was something off. I got a call from Laker on my way home and she was pretty upset. She said she had gotten fired and that was her last practice. I could not believe what I was hearing. She has been the varsity coach for 7 years and had only one losing record. She was efficient and showed up when the high school needed her. I would credit her with the reason the program is one of the best in the area. I don’t want to get into details on this discussion post on what happened, because it’s not my business to share. However, I’m really going to have to start thinking about how to finish these hours. I was counting on doing a little more with the team to get to the 200.
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