Meet The Class of 2010 - William

One of the unique attributes of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program is the network of students who make up our program. Our class will take every course together during our tenure here at UCF and we will work on countless group projects and collaborative efforts. As a result of our shared interests in the business of sport, a natural team camaraderie is formed. However, our team is composed of people from diverse backgrounds, experiences and ambitions. We offer profiles of class members to give you an idea as to the type of people who make up our program, individuals who collectively will be leaders in sport and society and will be teammates for life.


Name: William Johnson
Hometown: Louisville, KY
Undergraduate College: The Florida State University
Undergraduate Major: Business Management

Current Graduate Assistantship or Employment: G.A. in the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES)

Future Career Goals: Working in professional soccer and eventually moving up to the ownership level.

Reasons For Choosing DeVos: The program stands for ethics, diversity, leadership, and community. The community aspect is very unique and the professors are good, positive role models.

Meet The Class of 2010 - Charlie

One of the unique attributes of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program is the network of students who make up our program. Our class will take every course together during our tenure here at UCF and we will work on countless group projects and collaborative efforts. As a result of our shared interests in the business of sport, a natural team camaraderie is formed. However, our team is composed of people from diverse backgrounds, experiences and ambitions. We offer profiles of class members to give you an idea as to the type of people who make up our program, individuals who collectively will be leaders in sport and society and will be teammates for life.


Name: Charlie Harless
Hometown: Hollywood, MD
Undergraduate College: The University of Tennessee
Undergraduate Major: Sport Management
Background: Head Student Manager for Tennessee Lady Vol Basketball Program, Intern in Athlete Services for the United States Olympic Committee

Current Graduate Assistantship or Employment: G.A. in the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES)

Future Career Goals: Working in college athletics administration and earning my doctorate in sport studies

Reasons For Choosing DeVos: Opportunity to work alongside highly motivated peers who are looking to not only be leaders in sport, but leaders in their community as well. The educational opportunity to earn two degrees while being placed in real-life sport and business environments presented a challenging and collaborative academic experience that I could not pass up.

Living Classroom 2.0 - New Year, New Class

Greetings everyone! The time since our last blog post has been regrettably long, but we are back to give you insight into the exciting goings-on in the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at UCF.

The Class of 2010 has already been in classes for a full month (!) and if I do say so myself, we have acclimated very quickly to both the rigors of the program and the many outside-the-classroom activities we can participate in. The first semester is all business, literally, as we take four of our M.B.A courses in statistics, economics, accounting and organizational behavior. We had our first major exam this morning so please wish us luck on the grade front.

Our most important test of the semester may actually take place tonight on the intramural fields, as our class does battle with the Class of 2009 in a game of co-ed Intramural Flag Football. In honor of our victory, I’ll post our winning score in the blog tomorrow (clearly nothing stings more than blog smack talk).

We have had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Bernard Franklin, Senior V.P. for Governance, Membership, and Education and Research Services for the NCAA. Dr. Franklin was our first guest in the Distinguished Speaker Series at DeVos. Dr. Franklin gave a fantastic presentation discussing his prominent role in college athletics, particularly his experiences with the controversial Native-American Mascot legislation. Students in both the 2009 and 2010 classes enjoyed Dr. Franklin’s candor and openness to questions regarding a wide issue of topics. On Friday, we are all looking forward to listening to author and former NFL all-pro linebacker David Meggyesy and next week, we will travel to Daytona to meet with the leadership of NASCAR. These should be some fascinating meetings that will give all of us greater insight to both the business and social issues of sport.

In the coming days, we’ll show you more of the life of a DeVos student and introduce to you the new class members who will be posting in the future. We're excited to share with you details from our memorable trip to New Orleans (that picture is all of us in the Class of 2010 with Dr. Lapchick and his wife Ann in New Orleans) and our unique community service activities. For any prospective students out there please feel free to post comments or ask questions of us at devosprogram@gmail.com. We are more than happy to talk about ourselves (modest much?) and how awesome the DeVos program has been for us this first month.

Enjoy the day

Charlie
Class of 2010