The Future of Sport: Writing
November 21, 2023
Gabrielle Godbout | Writing Center Tutor
As I stood outside the door of my first ever internship, feelings of uncertainty and anxiety hit me.
What will it be like? Will I enjoy the work? What will my bosses be like? Can I meet their expectations? What if I fail? What if, what if, what if?
As these questions formed in my mind, I realized that there was no way for me to get the answers other than embracing the challenge and facing it head on. With some newfound confidence, I walked through that door of Exclusive Sports Group Agency and was ready to finally experience what I had worked so hard for.
Exclusive Sports Group is an agency that focuses on providing NFL players with the services to become successful both during their professional football career and after. As one can imagine, the pressure of being involved in a sports agency was intense. The agents depended on me and the other interns to provide exceptional and flawless work as it would impact their strategies in recruiting players and the lives of their clients.
At the start of the internship, each day began with recruiting bios. These bios took approximately three hours each due to the amount of research that was required. Each intern would be assigned five potential clients per week that the agency was looking to recruit and we would have to gather as much information as possible.
A long-term assignment I worked on throughout my internship was training camp care packages. These packages were sent out to each active client on a roster during their training camp to offer support and wish them good luck. In order to make these packages, we messaged over 700 different companies/brands via e-mail over the course of a few weeks to see if any would be willing to provide free products for the players.
The most meaningful project I worked on was a mock negotiation debate. After being given the role of “the agent,” I was tasked with researching the player we were representing and coming up with his contract. After a week of preparation, we constructed an argumentative memo to send to the other team proving why the athlete deserved the amount of money within the proposed salary.
All of these tasks had one thing in common: Writing.
No matter the form, whether it be a quick e-mail or an in-depth, research-oriented argumentative memo, my success at the internship was dependent on writing skills. This was incredibly surprising to me as I was not expecting this much writing within the sports world; however, I quickly found out that the majority of negotiations between an agent and a professional team is completed over e-mail.
By establishing my writing ability, it was easier to effectively communicate at a professional level. The development of writing skills, often undervalued in a digital age, directly transcended into meaningful career opportunities for me.
This experience prompts me to emphasize the importance of pushing yourself to the next level of your writing skills. The ability to effectively communicate in writing can equip you with the ability to adapt and succeed within experiences that provoke feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.
Ultimately, the internship that initially made me question myself and my abilities actually pushed me toward a unique journey of self-confidence, growth, and discovery.
And thanks to my already developed writing skills, I was able to eventually answer my own questions by realizing that I did not fail. In fact, I excelled.
