Entering the workforce after college can sometimes feel anything but comfortable.
New settings. New faces. New responsibilities. New expectations – and tied not to grades but to paychecks.
For NIU Sport Management majors who traveled this spring to Ohio with Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education faculty Dave Serowka and Wonock Chung, however, the plunge isn’t one into the unknown.
Serowka and Chung drove nine Huskies, mostly seniors as well as two pursuing their master’s degrees, to the TeamWork Online Sport Sales Workshop and Job Fair held Feb. 20 at Rocket Arena in Cleveland.
Part of the program? Speed interviews. With real teams. With real gigs for the grabbing and, sometimes, with real job offers before the day is over.
“That Friday is a very busy, full, packed day for our students,” says Serowka, an instructor in the department where he is also a doctoral student and two-time alum.
“It starts off with breakfast, and then it opens with some calisthenics, just to get them out of their comfort zone. Then they’ll break out into different groups where they’ll do some role-playing. They’ll do some workshops talking about sport sales,” he adds.
“All the teams are there, and all the sales managers are actually running this. When our students are in these groups, they’re intentionally paired up with students from other universities, so it really puts them outside their comfort zone.”
Well, not completely.
“By this point, they all have taken our Sport Sales curriculum courses in sales and sponsorships,” Serowka says, “and Dr. Chung and I always make a point to communicate with them. The weeks leading up to this, we’ll jump on a few different Zoom calls to just kind of dialogue about how this trip’s going to look and what to expect.”
Meanwhile, he says, “they want to work in sport sales so, going into it, they’re already familiar with it. Maybe they’ve done a couple internships, or they’ve worked in some revenue-generating areas in working for some minor league teams or even some of the major league teams in the area, or by helping out in the ticket office at NIU Athletics.”
Kaci Luptak, a senior Sport Management major from Knoxville, Illinois, calls her experience “incredibly impactful.”
How much so?
Luptak returned to DeKalb after shaking hands and interviewing with the Buffalo Sabres, the Charlotte Hornets, the Nashville Predators, the Cleveland Browns, the Indianapolis Colts, the Washington Commanders, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Rock Entertainment Group.
“I was interested in going to Cleveland because I recognized it as a valuable opportunity to connect with both fellow students pursuing careers in the sport industry and experienced professionals currently working in the field,” Luptak says. “I was eager to expand my network, gain industry insight, learn new information, and challenge myself by stepping outside of my comfort zone in a competitive environment.”
Good choice.
“The overall energy and professionalism of the workshop reinforced my passion for pursuing a career in sport sales,” Luptak says.
“I learned that sport sales is a competitive and demanding field,” she adds, “but that challenge is what makes it so rewarding. It requires grit, confidence and the discipline to keep going even when things get tough. Success comes from consistently pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and bringing value to a team-driven environment.”
Rachel Thomas, a senior from Chicago, challenged herself to “do three back-to-back interviews, which were difficult mentally, of course. However, knowing that I was able to do that, and to do a pretty good job during them, gave me confidence in any other interview I did after that.”
“I learned that I can do many things on the spot and do good at it,” Thomas says.
“When we were in our workshop rooms and had to quickly make many sales questions in front of a room of strangers, I was a little nervous about it,” she adds, “but after doing that, the interviews and the networking, I learned that I could do a lot as long as I keep my mind on the goal.”
Before making the trip to Cleveland, Brennan Pierceson, wasn’t sure yet if sport sales was “what I wanted to do with my life to support me and my family.”
“My experience there was so eye-opening. My eyes were opened to a whole new world of sales that now I’m dying to be a part of,” says Pierceson, a senior from Sterling. “I learned that if I can do this, I can do anything. I love a challenge – this industry is a little challenging – and I want to do it.”
That’s music to Serowka’s ears.
“I always tell everyone that this is the most important thing I do every year as a faculty member because it’s not just theory in the classroom. It’s getting out there and meeting with the real people who are hiring students,” he says.
“What’s so funny – because it’s the same thing every year – is when we drive there together, they’re always really quiet. They don’t even know each other that well in the van because they’re different age levels, or maybe they’re not in the same little cohort. They’re not engaging with each other. They’re kind of nervous. They don’t know all of what they’re getting into,” he adds.
“And then we get there, and they get this crash course in a day-and-a-half, and when we are heading back, the camaraderie and the sense of excitement is so elevated because some of them are getting emails for second interviews and some of them are getting full-time job offers.”
He shares their joy, courtesy of the affirmation coming from the other sides of those interview tables.
“Several sales managers from different teams asked our students, ‘Who brought you here? Because I want to meet them and thank them,’ ” Serowka says.
“I actually had had a few different organizations come up to me and they shook my hand, and it’s nothing I’ve done – it’s just our students – but I was just so flattered. They said, ‘Your students are so well prepared. They’re so respectful. They’re dressed so nice,’ ” he adds. “It’s such a compliment when I know there are a ton of other schools there, and there are other faculty, and they’re not getting that, which is so cool for us.”
