Hello, my name is Joe Cunningham. I am currently a junior sport management major at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. As my major indicates, I have a passion for sports, but particularly the game of baseball. By being apart of the sport management program at Isenberg, I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of alumni like Ben Cherington, Neal Huntington, and Chris Antonetti, who are Major League Baseball general managers with the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cleveland Indians, respectively. The general manager typically makes all decisions in an organization relating to personnel, while also having a heavy influence on other factors such as sponsorships, marketing, budgets, and media relations. Sports management is a highly competitive field, with almost everyone involved pining for a high-level job such as an MLB general manager. With this being the case, the importance of preparation and differentiation cannot be stressed enough.

After coming to Isenberg, I completed two unpaid internships in the subsequent summers to kick off my sport management career. The first was for a man who was running a summer training program in a new facility for over 200 junior high and high school athletes across Massachusetts' south shore. While helping move weights around and timing athletes isn't exactly resume building material, I still gained valuable insight about starting a business and other administrative tasks that aren't so readily apparent. Another takeaway I got was the value of waking up very early in the morning. I was not very enthused to be getting up at 5:30 AM during the summer, but it can be a big advantage to be productive while everyone else is sleeping. Moving forward, this past summer I broke into the game of baseball, interning with the Plymouth Pilgrims of the New England College Baseball League. With this job I dealt with interacting with team sponsors, as well as customer service at games all the while brushing shoulders with potential Major League players (about 40% of players in the NECBL in a given year typically get drafted). Perhaps most valuable from this experience, however, was the connections I made with the other interns and team management. It is vital to build a strong network when pursuing a career in a competitive field, and a previous connection could pay dividends in the future. I plan on continuing to build my network within the field with eyes on a dream job in baseball.