Its Over....

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Sunday was my last game working with the Fayetteville Guard. The game itself was very good the Guard lost to the Florence Phantoms by only 1 point. I was at the Crown at 10 in the morning, and did not leave until 8 in the evening. That was a total of 10 hours which completes my internship, it gives my 126 hours. my day started off like the last game, I had to move tables all around again because the Crown employees forgot to do it again. so I moved all of the tables and then I had to go down to Promo-room and get all of the promotions for that game plus all of the merchandise that was going to be sold at the game. It was a little easier this because I had some help. Last game I was on my own. Once we had the Merchandise up to the tables we had to get the signs out, the only reason they were down was because the FireAntz had a game a few nights before. So once the signs were out of the room we had to hang them all up, in no order, we had to make it look good. since I am a professional sign hanger it did not take that long for all of the sign to be hung up. Once that was done i had to hang camouflage tarps up throughout the arena, on rails and over tunnels. and then I had to hang up the main tunnel banner it must be 10x20 feet. That was a challenge. By then it was almost ready for the game to start. so i went to my assigned spot which was at the stats table, I was spotting for the statistician. it was a little bit more difficult because Florence's number were all rolled up under their pads so it was hard to see but I managed to figure it out. It was better game than last because no one kicked the kick off through the up-rights, and we did not have to find out how to put that in the computer. There was some things that I noticed, the man who was doing stats was not prepared, he did not have rosters for both teams. It was not that they did not give them to him, it was that he never went and asked for one. How are you supposed to do stats for a professional sports team and not know what to need for each game. I think that I could have done better personally. When the game was over I was able to leave because the Coliseum was not being used by anyone other than the guard, so we did not have to tear down, the signs were able to stay up and everything could stay out. nothing had to go back. I wish that they played more home games so I could work some more. Since school gets out May 1st and their next home game is not until May 10th. Over all I enjoyed my experience. I am glad that I worked for a minor league team because I was able to experience it all. I was not trapped to only one job. I learned a lot from my internship. Thank you to the entire Guard staff for giving me this opportunity.

1st Game

Well on March 30 the Guard played their first home game of the season. I was at the Crown at 10:00am to set up for the game. I did several things before the game started. The first thing that I did was move tables around in the North Concourse because the Crown employees did do as they were asked. I had to move probably 15 tables, we had to set up the Merchandise table, and all of the other tables for organizations and groups that paid to have a table in the Concourse. After that it was time to hang all of the signage. It was only me and one other person doing all of this work. First wee had to go down to offices on the Arena floor level and get all of the signage to bring up to the Concourse level. There must have been about 40 signs to carry up. Once we got all of the signs up to the concourse we had to now hang them. That did not take very long but it was just very tedious work. Once those signs were hung, now I had to help put up the "dasher broads" which are the signs that are along the boards of the field. That was pretty hard because the work had to be done fast, but it was very hard to do. Luckily there was a professional there that was doing the work, I was just helping. Once all of that was done, I had to go back to offices and bring up all of the merchandise to be sold during the game. Good thing for us there was a hand cart that we were able to use. That job only took about a half hour. By now people were beginning to enter the Crown for the game. My next job was to find the person in charge of stats. I found him very easily. We got the program up and running, The game was getting ready to start. The Guard had a man there doing stats so i was just his spotter. What that is, is I call out what is going on during the game, it makes it easier for him so he doesn't have to keep looking up and down. The game started very smoothly for me but about half way through the 2nd quarter the other team kicked a kick off through the uprights, apparently it is worth 1 point. and we had no idea how to do that on the computer. we figured it out and the game continued to run smooth. After the game was over I had more to do, remember all of the signs that I hung before the game, I had to take down because the FireAntz had a game the following day. So that took about another hour. So when all was said and done I was there for 9hrs. That brings me up to 116 hrs. I learned that setting up to the games is a lot more hectic that actually running the game. I also learned that you can not rely on others to get things done. Overall I had a great time working my first professional indoor football game.

Practices Begin

Well training camp has finally begun. I have to say it was a very anticipated event. Over the past two weeks I have been helping the coaches with practice. Making sure that everything is running in schedule. The team will have two pre-season games which I will not be able to attend because Spring Break is 4 days and I will be heading home to FLORIDA. After the end of the week helping out with practice and clean up I will have accumulated 85 hours. I am very excited for the season to start so i really see the ins and out of how an Arena Football team runs. I also found out that I will be doing Stats during the season for all of the home games. This will be fun because I know the stats program that the league uses because it is the same program that we use for the football games here at Methodist. I am looking forward to a very exciting rest of the season.

Its Coming

Well since my last post I have not done anything, I have been waiting for Training Camp to start. Well it has arrived, Training Camp will begin February 15th. I have no idea what I will be doing, all that I know is, I will be working very closely with the players and coaches. so at this moment in time I am just sitting and waiting for camp to start.

Try-outs

In the last few weeks i have very busy helping out with open try outs. I attended 3 of 4 try outs, I only missed 1 because i went home for Christmas break. I found out a lot about running an event while helping, I learned that you need help to run everything, also need people to run registration. since this was such a small event the use of security was not needed. I had a great time while i was there. I got to keep times for a certain group, this past try out i was with the offensive line, defensive line and linebackers. It was a great deal of fun, there were 2 methodist students there, Daryl Lawerance, and Lorenzo Sweeney. I think that both have a great chance of being called back for training camp. Overall I worked probably at least a good 15 hours. The participants had to run the 20 yard dash, 20 & 10 yard shuttle, and Various exercises. My responsibility was to keep the times for all of these events. I had a blast and I can not wait until February 15 for training camp.

Finally...

Sorry I have not been writing but things have been going very slow here with the Guard. But not anymore, finally we are getting into Football Operations. I have offially made the swith from Saleman to Operations Staff. That is the real reason why I got the internship. Wednesday Nov 16 was my first experience working in the operations side. We got a new head coach, so I had to help out with setting up the Press Conference. Setting up included moving tables, hanging banners, and directed the media where the Conference was going to be held. I got my second taste of Operations on Sunday the 18th when the Guard held an open try-out. I got to meet the guys who were trying out, then i got to run the stopwatch for and record everything for Coach. We did the 40yd dash, and the 20yd shuttle. We only had about 10 guys show up, but there are more oppertunities in the future. I was also told some really good news, first, me and my fellow intern are going to be given a game that we are going to oversee, it is OUR game. AWESOME!! Second, i learned that I migt be doing professional stats for the Guard. I have plenty of experience with stats because that is my work study job on campus. All i have to say is this intership is filled with oppertunities and once in a life time experiences.

10/1/2007 Going on a Sale

Today was a pretty cool day, I got to go on a sale with my supervisor. I learned something that is very helpful. I found out that you always ave to adapt to the times of the people that you are trying to sell to. Actually I really did not get to see how a real sale would go, because we did not get to talk to anyone. That is why I said you have to adapt to the times. We did reschedule for times that were convenient for everyone. I really hope that we get their sponsorship.