SARAH WUELLNER, Asst. Sports Editor—The Denison Sports Career Exploration Club is new this year to help students find careers in the sports industry or for those who are interested in learning more about sports. The executive board is made up of the founders, Max Hoffman ‘23, Johnny Fabian ‘23, Sammy Cintra ‘23, and Sam Secrest ‘23. The club is open to everyone that would like to find opportunities for a career in sports and to build your resume.
The club was started initially thought up by Hoffman as he was inspired by a friend with that was head of a similar club at Amherst College that invited a general manager of the Angels to come in and talk with students. Hoffman then decided to start a club at Denison with similar intentions. “We are here to help first get your life together and decide what you want to do, but beyond that we help you network to get internships and jobs. The club is to help people get into the industry and find the careers they are looking for, say in coaching or training.” he explained.
Hoffman loves sports and he wants to go into sports management for the National Football League. However, he has noticed the challenges there are in finding a career in sport. “Sports is very much a ‘who you know’ type of field and for me I’ve always had trouble getting into it, getting internships because I do not come from a sports family in terms of my parents in sports fields. I have not had those connections immediately so I have always been interested in the people in sports and how they got into it” he said.
With new clubs developing on campus, it is important to get a grasp on what the goal of the club is or where the executive team wants it to go. “Everyone is supposed to gain something out of this whether that is an internship or a job. If I get a guest speaker to come in and somebody makes a connection or someone realizes ‘that’s a pretty cool sports field I never thought about I will look more into that’ and that ends up becoming their career. In actuality I just hope that people are more easily able to get into whatever field they would like to get into” Hoffman described.
In the future, the club will host some events and speakers from various fields to get students engaged and excited for what the club has to offer. “My dream is that we have a wide variety of speakers. For example, we had sports medicine come in one Sunday, but I would like to get speakers that are into all different sides of it; sports marketing, sports management, business, sales, ticketing.. In terms of events we are planning a dodgeball tournament to bring people in for the club, but mostly people will have fun and enjoy themselves” Hoffman stated.
Hoffman encourages students to come to the biweekly meetings on Sundays at 6pm via zoom if they would like to learn more about the Denison Sports Exploration Club.
“I am looking forward to all of the guest speakers we are going to have. I am really interested in their careers and how they got started and I have a ton of questions. If you are interested in sports careers, we are going to have some cool events and some cool people. Whether or not you have an internship, I think it is a really great opportunity to expand your search and to make connections” Hoffman said.
Contact Max Hoffman at [email protected] to join the club!