This letter is in response to Evan Smith’s column on Jan. 23 titled “True Story: Sports still consume lives of washed-up champions.”
As a senior sport management major at Ohio University, I will admit that yes, sports do consume my life. I watch SportsCenter every morning, I read ESPN.com religiously and I have subscribed to Sports Illustrated for more years than I can count. The walls in my apartment are decorated with memorabilia of my favorite teams, and I kick myself when I miss an Ohio Athletics sporting event.
So, according to Evan Smith, I am a former “football star of my high school,” too washed up to continue playing, so instead, I study sports. Evan, you could not be any further from the truth. I am a 5-foot-8-inch tall, overweight sports fanatic. I did not play a down of meaningful high school football; instead, I took to the court to have a successful varsity career in a sport many consider to be predominately female: volleyball. I must sit around and smoke weed every day, because that is what the sport management students at OU do, right?
What about the sport management students working in the marketing department, selling season tickets to the community so that the Ohio Men’s basketball team can lead the conference in attendance? What about the plethora of sport management students putting in the hours of a Division I athlete as managers of one of Ohio’s 15 varsity sports? What about the sport management students who volunteer countless hours of their time to help the media relations department, or the sport management students who help in maintaining the athletic facilities of this fine institution to make sure that they are suitable for interscholastic competition?
Evan, while you generalize the sport management students with the insignificant sample size of people that you know, hundreds of devoted, sport-business loving, career-driven individuals attend classes daily so that we can learn how to thrive in the sports industry. We study facility management, sport marketing, sales management, sport promotions, governance and ethics, and the history of the sports industry, etc. We learn from some of the finest and most experienced professors in the country. We travel to conferences and career fairs, and individually, we obtain internships and jobs in the aspect of sports that we love. Are we consumed with sports? Absolutely, and that is why we are so passionate about this major.
While my competitive career as an athlete may be complete, I am starting a different sports career. You are correct about one thing, Evan: Many of us will one day be coaches, general managers, commentators and athletic directors. We will also hold plenty of other positions to make sure that the booming and continuously growing sports industry continues to thrive. I invite you to a meeting of the Sports Business Association Wednesday in Walter Hall, Room 135. Sit in the back of the room and listen in as the hundreds of sport management students that you generalized and demeaned change your perception of the sports industry forever.
Zach Weinberg is a senior studying sport management.
