Trinity student Amanda Gerlach, a sophomore communication and Spanish double major with a sport management minor, was an ambassador for Westwood One Radio Row during the NCAA Final Four, held in San Antonio earlier this month. Her job was taking past and current coaches, players and other people involved with college basketball for interviews at different radio stations.
Gerlach saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because she was able to “spend time talking with them too, which was really nice!” she said. “I even got a picture with Bill Walton.”
Gerlach also worked with the Naismith Awards, helping with crowd control and safeguarding the NCAA Championship trophy on display at the PrimeSport Fan Experience. “It was a really awesome experience and I learned a lot about the stresses of event management and the importance of networking,” she said.
Gerlach was one of several Trinity students who either volunteered or worked for the Final Four, which involved a wide range of festivities and opportunities, from Radio Row to Fan Fest to media credentialing to the Naismith Award Ceremony.
Radio Row was produced by Westwood One. It was live radio at the Convention Center in San Antonio. They had 15 sports radio stations from across the country at the event as well as a few national radio shows broadcasting live and interviewing current and former NCAA coaches, players, and more. Some Trinity students assisted in these interviews.
At the Fan Fest concerts, Trinity students both volunteered and worked to ensure the fans were enjoying themselves, answering the fans' questions or rebounding the ball for the fans to play a game.
For media credentialing, students escorted press personnel around and helped to verify press credentials. Naismith Award Ceremony awarded the college coach and player of the year, and the students were helping set up the event and check people in.
“I am extremely grateful to Trinity University for the opportunity to experience the Naismith Awards,” said Ryan Pavlich, a recent graduate of Trinity. He was able to meet the executive director of the Naismith Awards, Eric Oberman, and several past NBA players including Bill Walton, at the event. “Getting to see Eric coordinate the show from behind the scenes was incredible as there were many moving parts he had to coordinate to make the Naismith Awards possible.”
Professor Jacob Tingle, the head of the Sports Management Major at Trinity, was
one of the faculty members who pushed for Trinity’s involvement in this year’s Final Four. The process started in the summer of 2017, with a conference call with NCAA. Tingle, along with professor Jennifer Henderson from the Department of Communication, made arrangements with NCAA for Trinity students’ involvement.
To help prepare the students, Trinity brought Mark Chapman, Senior Director of Creative Services of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, to teach a class on strategic sports video last semester and again this semester.
Tingle believes that Trinity’s students can get this kind of valuable opportunity because Trinity has the reputation of providing high-quality students who can engage with professionals. “Because we were able to provide the kind of student that, for example, Westwood One expected, they didn’t have to get people from other universities,” said Tingle. “Same with the Naismith Award. When they came into town, their first thought was that they wanted to use Trinity students only. The NCAA Social Media Hub did use Trinity students only.”
Shelby Devore, a senior at Trinity, found her courses in sport management and communication very helpful in preparing her to work for the Final Four. Her sport management classes have taught her a lot about leadership and how to best work with others. “This was helpful when I was working with so many people, and it also helped me communicate better with fans,” she said.
From the communication classes, she has learned how to run events and present customer service. “Overall, Trinity has also taught me how to treat people and problem solve and that was huge for this experience,” said Devore.
Besides leadership and communicating with people, Trinity students also learned other valuable lessons from their Final Four experience, such as time management. Mathew Claybrook, a sophomore, was impressed how important it was to follow the schedule while working with Radio Row. With so many radio stations and little time for each interview, the volunteers needed to make sure each interview would last no more than 10 minutes.
“We always needed to be aware of the time and we needed to be able to communicate with the radio hosts when they needed to wrap up the interviews,” said Claybrook. “It was difficult to cut the interviews off when the interviewees were in the middle of a story, or if the hosts were reluctant to end the interview.”
Despite all the challenges, Claybrook, like the other Trinity students at Final Four, said he enjoyed this unique experience.
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