By Brian Gerrity

Brian Gerrity is a 2005 graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. At Bates, he was a two-year captain and a 1,000-point scorer for the men’s basketball team. In 2006-07, Gerrity worked at Yale University as an intern in the varsity sports office, where he acted as contest manager for Yale’s nationally-ranked women’s soccer and women’s hockey programs. Gerrity has accepted a fellowship to attend Springfield College in the fall of 2007 to pursue a master’s degree in Athletic Administration.

In August 2006, I accepted an internship to work in the athletic department at Yale University. Though I was treated as an equal and expected to perform important duties, the staff never lost sight of the fact this was a learning experience and my first taste of working in college athletics. During my time as an intern, I learned how an athletics program operates, the keys to getting hired for a permanent position, and some very valuable information about athletics as a whole. My goal for this blog is to share those lessons with others who have similar career aspirations.

Over the course of my college career, I never appreciated how difficult it is to break into the athletic industry. I thought being a successful student-athlete would easily translate into many opportunities to work in athletics after college. However, I had never stopped to really think about how athletic departments actually work. Like many athletes and fans, I assumed that games “happened” without giving a second thought to the planning that goes into every contest.

After graduation, I learned a valuable lesson. While I did have a small advantage due to the success I enjoyed as an athlete, I found that the most important piece of the employment puzzle was the network of contacts I had built throughout my college career. I found that although employers within the athletic industry can sometimes be swayed by the recommendation of a trusted peer, preference is usually given to applicants they know personally.

Looking around the athletic department, I quickly realized how vital my Yale experience was going to be for my future within athletics. Ryan Bamford, Greg Brinn, and Erin Carey are all assistant athletic directors at Yale. All of them began their careers as interns. The employee who held the Yale intern position prior to me is now an assistant athletic director at a Division III school in New England.

I was also under the assumption that assistant coaching positions and administrative positions were easy to acquire. I quickly learned that every opening in the athletic world attracts a large and qualified pool of applicants. The internship I had at Yale drew over 260 applicants, including students fresh out of college, former coaches, professionals with advanced degrees, and people interested in mid-life career changes.

When I became an intern, I was contacted by numerous people who wanted to fill my position after I moved on. I received multiple emails and phone calls, and nearly all the applicants had no idea how competitive and serious the internship was. I had a chance to view all of the applicants' submission and was shocked to see emails and resumes with spelling errors and correspondences that conveyed a very casual attitude. In other words, they eliminated themselves from contention by simply not understanding how difficult it is to find work at a major university’s athletic department.

Because there are no “entry level positions” in this field, internships have become the most common way to get one’s foot in the door. Interns are professional and capable, and are given responsibilities that are crucial to the success of the department. Upon arriving at Yale, my primary responsibilities were to assist with the day-to-day operations within the varsity sports office, which is in charge of contest management, team meals, lodging, and travel, as well as scheduling.

The varsity sports office, also known as internal operations, is the heart of an athletic department. Although my title was “intern,” my experience was far from the stereotypical intern who is in charge of getting the boss coffee and making copies. My position came complete with full benefits, salary, and an expectation to help the athletic department function in any way needed. My duties ranged from contest management to participating on committees. Each season I was given a team to supervise. I was assigned women’s soccer in the fall, women’s hockey in the winter, and softball in the spring. I was also expected to assist with football, men’s basketball, and crew over the course of the year.

As part of the internship program, monthly meetings were arranged for me with senior staff members, who discussed their backgrounds, gave advice on career planning, and shared their thoughts on athletic administration. People outside the world of collegiate athletics have a difficult time understanding how competitive every job in the industry is. An outsider may scoff at the title of intern, while those within the industry understand how much interns are relied upon every day. Although the value of interns is appreciated within the world of athletic administration, people outside athletics are much less aware of their importance.

Over the course of the next few months, I would like to pass that understanding to students and professionals who are interested in pursuing a career in this field. I will post a series of articles on this site that chronicle what I learned in my time as an intern at Yale.

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