As I stated in class, my name is Steven Wright and I am the assistant sports information director at Ohio Northern University. I recently graduated from ONU in May of 2008 and decided to stay in Ada for two more years while I pursue my master's degree at Bowling Green.
We were asked in class to come up with a statement that would help identify and introduce ourselves. For me, the identifying statement has recently changed. A year ago I was a three-year captain and four-year starter for the Ohio Northern men's club volleyball team. I had great success as part of the team as well as an individual. We were able to win the 2007 National Championship, which was the ultimate achievement in my four years. I was also named to the All-Tournament Team at nationals three seasons, First Team All-Conference all four years and Conference MVP three seasons. At that point in my life I would have used the statement, "I lead, therefore I am." With my current position at ONU, a new statement that I would now use as a self-descriptor is, "I inform, therefore I am." I do not believe that is a statement that I would like to have for the rest of my life, but the job is definitely enjoyable and has some perks. For example, in March I will get to work the first and second rounds of the NCAA March Madness Tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina due to my connections in the sports information world.
Other sport-related job experiences include serving as an assistant coach for the women's volleyball team at ONU in the fall of 2007 as well as being a public relations associate for a Texas Collegiate League baseball team named the Duncanville Deputies in the summer of 2007. Also, throughout my undergraduate work at Ohio Northern, I served as a student worker in the sports information office. That experience helped land my graduate assistant position at Northern.
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I did not realize that you won the National championships in club volleyball. That must have been an exciting experience! That explains your continuing involvement in Volleyball. Do you hope to continue with coaching and/or being involved in volleyball? I can see where coaching and Sports Information could be compatible. As I read about your Sports Information duties, I wondered if SI people are using blogs to update information. It would seem like a perfect outlet for keeping sports updates and information current.
ReplyDeleteYou may have told me this before, but I wondered where you worked in public relations in Texas? Assuming that it might be Duncanville, where is that near? Having lived in Texas (San Antonio and Corpus Christi), I played in tournaments and did some traveling around the state, but that was awhile ago.
Thanks for sharing your background information, and for giving a preview in class for how to set up a blog!
Yes, I very much hope to continue with volleyball. I do enjoy my sports information job, but I think I would like coaching more. Being a part of the action and being a part of a team is much more enjoyable to me.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine in the profession at Wake Forest got my boss and me tickets for a football game against Clemson. His sole responsibility during the game was to keep a running blog of everything going on. He would track big plays and the course of the game, but he would also update things that would not normally be seen in a box score.
I was in Duncanville for a summer. It is just south of Dallas. I lived in North Richland Hills for two summers, including the one when I worked for the Deputies. NRH is more near Ft. Worth, so it was about a 40 minute drive one way for me to get to work. I like it quite a bit there and will probably look for a job there when I am finished here at BGSU.
I hope your knee is doing alright. That was not good to hear last week. I just had a quick question. Will it be tough for you to potentially move to Texas or anywhere else in the country that's substantially far away from Ohio?
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment on what you said about coaching, and also Andrew's question about moving to Texas. As for coaching, it was something I loved, so I can definitely relate to someone having a passion for coaching. When I was thinking about going into a doctoral program, one of the tough aspects of doing that was deciding that I would have to give up coaching, and that was difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteAs for moving to Texas, I transferred there in my junior year and thought it would be so difficult to be so far away from home. But I have found that if you are doing something you love, the it works. As I found out, it did not have to be forever either.