The Penn State Sports Business Club provides students with hands-on experience in the sports industry

At Penn State University, sports are about so much more than just throwing and catching a ball.

Penn State's larger athletic environment provides students with the opportunity to experience what happens off the field and also interact with student-athletes and representatives from professional athletes and organizations. At Penn State, many of these experiences are offered through the Sports Business Club.

As a freshman at Penn State, Dylan Hausner was looking for ways to get involved on campus. He joined the Sports Business Club and even though the meetings were held virtually, he felt the energy and involvement of the organization from the start. The Sports Business Club taught him more about the sports business, why it is an important industry and how it interested him.

“Most weeks they brought in speakers,” Hausner said. “People who work in the sports industry can talk about how they got to where they are and what they're doing now and give some very valuable advice on how to get into the sports industry, which isn't for you. “ can definitely learn in a classroom. A lot of learning happens outside of the classroom.”

Within the club, Hausner joined a marketing committee responsible for social media and graphics. He continued his hard work on the internal committee and was promoted to leader in his second year. He then became Vice President of Student Development within the organization, where he was able to work fully on various projects.

“One of the things I’m most proud of for our club is our alumni mentoring program,” Hausner said. “Basically, any of our speakers or anyone who is connected to our club in any way, whether Penn State alumni or speaker alumni, is assigned to a student and becomes their mentor, so to speak. We’ve had great success with that in terms of building a kind of one-on-one relationship.”

With continued hard work and determination, Hausner was elected President of the Sports Business Club for his senior year.

“It’s been an incredible ride,” he said. “I met a lot of great people and saw them grow into different roles and I think that was the best part of it all. I learned a lot and it was super, super valuable for me.”

Similar to Hausner, when Devon McGill first arrived at Penn State, she looked for organizations to join. McGill's experience at the club was invaluable as she learned the ins and outs of the different areas one can work in the sports industry. McGill began her first year on the Professional Development Committee, helping to coordinate speakers for the club and facilitating meetings with those speakers to ensure the right questions were being asked.

She explained that some of the other important things her committee specifically did were building resumes, researching LinkedIn, and assisting with cover letters and interviews. During her freshman and sophomore years, McGill served on the Professional Development Committee, and in her sophomore year she became the Director of Special Events on the Executive Committee.

“I have been responsible for truly growing our community beyond the professionalism within the club, something I am very proud of and proud of,” McGill said. “I think we have grown a lot socially as a club. Before we were very business professional, almost purely professional. I think we like to have a lot of fun, you know, sports fans are really competitive. So we host events that really allow people to get to know the people around them, become friends and build a sense of community where the board is no different than the members of our general body.”

McGill was elected and promoted to vice president of club operations, which was her senior role this year. She discussed how much of her work involved gathering and scheduling speakers for the club.

“We have speaker meetings almost every Tuesday at least three to four times a month. We bring in speakers from all areas of the different sports industries on a fairly regular basis, whether it be sales, marketing or even broadcast journalism,” McGill said. “We really try to give our members a wide range of the different opportunities that the industry offers them.”

Speakers the organization met with include Jim Ivler of the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), Dr. Erkut Sogut, the agent of German soccer player and world champion Mesut Özil, and Dior Ginyard from the popular online sports retailer Fanatics, which was also listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Sports 2018.

Hausner and McGill also spoke about the importance of the Sports Business Conference, which took place March 21 and 22. This year, recruiters from the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Eagles, New Jersey Devils and Pro Football Focus also attended the event, representing Penn State Athletics.

“I have to say that there was a lot of preparation in advance,” said Hausner about holding the conference. “For example, we did resume checks a month before so people could clean up their resumes. We also had a LinkedIn workshop so people could learn how to use LinkedIn and update their profiles and what to post and what to include in their profile in terms of skills or background experience. Then we had elevator pitch practice… I think that’s another nice thing about the club.”

“We have a really big presence of underclassmen in the club,” McGill added. “That's why I think it's important to reach out to them and teach them what a resume should look like and how to have a LinkedIn presence and how to do a good elevator pitch because when you go to the conference, you're talking to them .” Recruiter and you are trying to make contacts and maybe get an internship or a job at this event. So we did our best to prepare them as best we could, and I think we felt a tremendous amount of confidence coming into this conference from a lot of our freshmen and sophomores.”

Another extremely important part of the Sports Business Club is its involvement with THON. This year, both Hausner and McGill danced for 46 hours in the fight against cancer and the organization raised $24,234.12. Hausner recognized the club's THON chairman, Will Robinson, and the value of the club's teamwork that led to its contribution to the children.

“We have a new THON family that we visited just last weekend who were able to spend time with their three and two year old children, and this THON experience was a big part of our experience. “Devon and I were close before and now we’re even closer because of this, so it’s been great,” Hausner said.

“It was truly special to be with a THON family this year,” McGill said. “Dancing for them just makes it even more meaningful. We met her in person for the first time at THON and got to play with the kids and had an epic water gun fight that left us both soaked by the end. It was my favorite highlight of the weekend and it made it that much more special.”

The Sports Business Club meets every Tuesday from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Chambers Building. The organization can be found at Instagram or through his websiteand people interested in joining can send an email Hausner or McGill.