A quick update on the Class of 2010. We've been keeping very busy this summer with four classes. The classes range from the final portion of our MBA core (Information Systems) to a leadership seminar led by Dr. Harrison. Additionally, our class had the choice of whether to take an events planning course with Dr. Harrison or a professional sales class led by Dr. Sutton and Dr. Gundy, as well as the choice between a pro sports seminar or independent college sports study.
Although the time commitment required to complete summer classes is undoubtedly taxing, we are learning some valuable lessons through projects that are applicable to the real-world. In addition to polishing up on our interview and business etiquette skills, we are working on an exciting t-shirt sales promotion with a professional sports franchise that requires us to work on every step of the process from initial design to final implementation. Meanwhile, several of our capstone sport marketing projects are starting to take shape and will come to full fruition in the coming weeks and months.
When the semester ends, we'll blog to let you know how some of our projects turned out. Until then, its back to the grind. Take care.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Help Raise Money For Hope For Stanley
As we have said on our blog and web site before, a major cornerstone of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program is our involvement with the Hope For Stanley Foundation.
In addition to volunteering your time and effort with the rebuilding effort in New Orleans, you can help support this foundation and its cause with the simple click of a mouse. GoodSearch is a search engine portal that allows you to earn a penny to the charity of your choice for every search you make. This means, if you type in "NCAS" or "National Consortium for Academic and Sports", under the charity search, you can raise money for Hope For Stanley.
Additionally, GoodShop is its sister site that donates a percentage of your final purchase to your favorite charity. This includes popular e-commerce sites like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, eBay, iTunes, Target and Walmart among many others.
Thanks for helping raise money for Hope for Stanley!
Monday, April 6, 2009
One Month To Go
Hey Everyone,
Sorry for the infrequent posting, life as a Sport Business Management student has been genuinely hectic over the last month, although we would not have it any other way. Group projects are the core of what we are doing this semester, so I'll give you all a breakdown of some of the projects we are working on right now.
Marketing - The first half of the semester was all about learning theory in traditional lecture style, but for the second half our class has immersed themselves in an online simulation known as Markstrat. The Markstrat game affords teams of students the opportunity to promote, position and develop brands of products in a competition for highest profit margins and stock prices. We are down to the last two periods of online simulation before making our final presentations. My group has been lagging a bit in stock price (currently #4 of #5 in our industry) but our stock just went up 200 points last week so things are looking promising for the stretch run.
Management - Our class has been divided into groups of 4-5 people all semester to analyze the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of many different companies through various case studies. For our group's last project, we took a field trip to meet management at a company and find out about their organizational structure first-hand. Lucky for our us our company was Wonderworks, an upside-down playhouse with all-you-can eat pizza and a magic show. Not a bad way to "research" a group project.
Diversity in Sport - We are juggling a few group projects right now in Dr. Harrison's class, from analyzing research articles, to forming our arguments for a class debate regarding whether college athletes should have to graduate before turning pro, to developing ideas for a Universal Orlando project initiative. These projects should be fun and keep us busy for this last month of classes.
Enjoy the Day!
Charlie
Sorry for the infrequent posting, life as a Sport Business Management student has been genuinely hectic over the last month, although we would not have it any other way. Group projects are the core of what we are doing this semester, so I'll give you all a breakdown of some of the projects we are working on right now.
Marketing - The first half of the semester was all about learning theory in traditional lecture style, but for the second half our class has immersed themselves in an online simulation known as Markstrat. The Markstrat game affords teams of students the opportunity to promote, position and develop brands of products in a competition for highest profit margins and stock prices. We are down to the last two periods of online simulation before making our final presentations. My group has been lagging a bit in stock price (currently #4 of #5 in our industry) but our stock just went up 200 points last week so things are looking promising for the stretch run.
Management - Our class has been divided into groups of 4-5 people all semester to analyze the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of many different companies through various case studies. For our group's last project, we took a field trip to meet management at a company and find out about their organizational structure first-hand. Lucky for our us our company was Wonderworks, an upside-down playhouse with all-you-can eat pizza and a magic show. Not a bad way to "research" a group project.
Diversity in Sport - We are juggling a few group projects right now in Dr. Harrison's class, from analyzing research articles, to forming our arguments for a class debate regarding whether college athletes should have to graduate before turning pro, to developing ideas for a Universal Orlando project initiative. These projects should be fun and keep us busy for this last month of classes.
Enjoy the Day!
Charlie
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tournament Time
Be sure to check out the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports' latest studies released this week examining the Academic Progress and Graduation Rates of the teams selected for the Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments.
They can be found here and here on the TIDES web site.
Does your favorite team on the court make the grade in the classroom?
They can be found here and here on the TIDES web site.
Does your favorite team on the court make the grade in the classroom?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
DeVos Program Web Site
Attention Readers,
I wanted to post a quick clarification regarding our DeVos Sport Business Management Program Web Site. There are links to our old Web Site on search engines like Google and Yahoo, so I wanted to provide the link to our new and improved web site here.
On this page, you can find out all of the important information regarding our program and its mission, the leadership, students and how we are changing the world through sport.
For those who cannot click the link above, please post the following address in your browser.
http://web.bus.ucf.edu/sportbusiness/
Thanks!
Enjoy the Day,
Charlie
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Meet The Class of 2010 - Jessica
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: Jessica Hanson
Hometown: Lexington, KY
Undergraduate College: Transylvania University
Undergraduate Major: Accounting
Background: I played 4 years of Basketball and 3 years of Tennis and served as the team captain for both my Junior and Senior years. I also had a summer internship with the American Volleyball Coaches Association where I helped develop the marketing plan for the 2007 Division 1 Championships.
Current G.A. Position or Industry Job: Graduate Assistant for the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES)
Future Career Goals: I’d love to work in college athletics. I’m not really sure where I’ll fit yet because I’d like to incorporate my accounting background, but working for the NCAA or an athletic conference is a possibility.
Reasons For Choosing DeVos: After my first visit to UCF and the DeVos program I knew this was the perfect place for me. The people are amazing and the Big 3 (Dr. Lapchick, Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Sutton) have incredible connections to every career area in sports. I was also drawn to the unique fact that the DeVos program focuses on diversity, giving back to the community, and making a real difference in the world through sports.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Dr. Lapchick on ESPN's Outside The Lines
Last week, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) published its latest study examining the academic performance measures of teams playing in this year's round of college football bowl games. The release of this study coincided with an increased industry and media focus on the lack of African-American head football coaches. Dr. Lapchick wrote an excellent article on the matter that was published on ESPN, which you should take the time to read here.
Additionally, Dr. Lapchick was part of a round table discussion on this past Sunday's episode of Outside the Lines, which highlighted the controversial Auburn University hire and the failures of other universities to genuinely consider African-Americans for their head coaching vacancies. The video of that discussion can be seen on the Outside The Lines Web Page under the link "OTL Roundtable: Civil Rights Movement," or with the right browser, in the embedded video below.
As always, all of Dr. Lapchick's articles and the studies he publishes with researching assistance from DeVos Graduate Students can be found on the TIDES Web Page.
Additionally, Dr. Lapchick was part of a round table discussion on this past Sunday's episode of Outside the Lines, which highlighted the controversial Auburn University hire and the failures of other universities to genuinely consider African-Americans for their head coaching vacancies. The video of that discussion can be seen on the Outside The Lines Web Page under the link "OTL Roundtable: Civil Rights Movement," or with the right browser, in the embedded video below.
As always, all of Dr. Lapchick's articles and the studies he publishes with researching assistance from DeVos Graduate Students can be found on the TIDES Web Page.
Checking In... End of First Semester
Long time no blog! Sorry for the delay in creating new posts, but we have just finished up a busy first semester. With finals out of the way, I can now take a few moments to wrap up how our first round of classes finished up.
As is par for the course, the end of the semester brought its typical deluge of assignments and projects to complete in addition to prepping for tough exams (i.e. Dr. Pennington's doozy of an economics test). Between creating original videos poking fun at organizational behavior concepts to running and analyzing regressions on statistical software, we were definitely challenged and learned a great deal through these assignments. With four M.B.A. courses now completed, we look forward to the spring semester where we will take our first classes with Dr. Lapchick and Dr. Harrison as well as continuing with three more business courses.
Before we get to spring however, we have a few weeks off to spend with family and friends and to recharge our batteries. Some of our class will be heading down to New Orleans tomorrow to continue work with Hope For Stanley and the rebuilding efforts there, so we wish them safe travels and hopes for another rewarding experience. We will be sure to post pictures and reactions from the latest New Orelans trip in the coming weeks.
Enjoy the Day and Happy Holidays,
Charlie
As is par for the course, the end of the semester brought its typical deluge of assignments and projects to complete in addition to prepping for tough exams (i.e. Dr. Pennington's doozy of an economics test). Between creating original videos poking fun at organizational behavior concepts to running and analyzing regressions on statistical software, we were definitely challenged and learned a great deal through these assignments. With four M.B.A. courses now completed, we look forward to the spring semester where we will take our first classes with Dr. Lapchick and Dr. Harrison as well as continuing with three more business courses.
Before we get to spring however, we have a few weeks off to spend with family and friends and to recharge our batteries. Some of our class will be heading down to New Orleans tomorrow to continue work with Hope For Stanley and the rebuilding efforts there, so we wish them safe travels and hopes for another rewarding experience. We will be sure to post pictures and reactions from the latest New Orelans trip in the coming weeks.
Enjoy the Day and Happy Holidays,
Charlie
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