Career Roadmap: Working Outside the Big Four – Recreation Sports

BY: ANNA AUDLER, GLASGOW ‘19 PROGRAM PARTICIPANT & PRODUCT AND CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGER AT P&P IMPORTS LLC

In my previous blog, I mention that working in sports was something that I had always wanted to do and sports was something that had always been a part of my life. When I made that decision to pursue a career in sports, I knew it was going to be a hard task to land a job in sports because I was earning my degree in Psychology, not Sports Management or any other related field. Then, I was asking myself a bunch of questions like “Are you sure you want to do this?” and “Should I just apply to graduate school?”, but I knew that if I just look for the experience and use my competitive nature to its advantage, I will find my path to working in sports.

I figured my best bet of getting my foot in the door in the sports industry was to work for the Club and Intramural Sports Department at UCLA Recreation while I was in college. There, I started off as just a referee for our soccer, softball, flag football, and volleyball leagues and always making sure I stay focused on what my overall goal is: getting a job in sports. Luckily, my supervisors noticed my determination and work ethic and decided to promote me to Student Supervisor where I could gain experience in league operations like coordinating referees and basic operations and customer service. The experience I gained during college gave me the confidence to continue with my path, but not without falling in love with recreational sports.

In addition to looking for full-time work after college, I wanted to make sure that I was still able to do all the things I fell in love with doing at UCLA Recreation outside in the adult world. When I discovered ZogSports, I knew it was a perfect match, but what I did not know was that there was so much more about it that made it more unique than your traditional college intramural league. ZogSports is a social sports league that has a primary focus on creating personal connections, caring communities, and a sense of play all through the power of sports. The company was founded after the events of 9/11, where founder Rob Herzog was 5 minutes late to work that day. He was inspired by the sense of camaraderie that New York City was feeling afterward and how sports was the main thing that brought everyone together. Though he did not just want to create a sports league, he also wanted to incorporate charity as a core part of the social sport experience. Every team that plays in the leagues gets to play for a charity of their choosing, and the winning team of that league wins proceeds for their charity. That is why when I was hired as a referee for ZogSports, I knew that I was going to be a part of something much larger than just sports.

Being a referee for ZogSports was the most fun experience I had in my career. Not only was I officiating the sports I enjoy playing, but I also got to build connections with the teams and players I interacted with daily. The players loved that I was able to bring energy to the court or field and have fun while getting the job done. There were even moments where I was invited to their happy hours or even to play on their teams and it was in those moments where I realized that I was doing more than just officiating games; I was also building connections and a sense of community that Rob had envisioned ZogSports would do. Those experiences were well worth the long tournament days, lugging heavy equipment around, working weekends, and the occasional SoCal sunburns.

All of this hard work eventually paid off when I was offered a full-time role as Operations Coordinator just 2 weeks after returning from my Living Sport trip to Glasgow in July 2019. My dedication to being the best referee I can be and the experience I gained while being abroad gave me that competitive edge to get this promotion. As Operations Coordinator, I oversaw our Basketball, Bowling, Kickball, Softball, and Spikeball leagues across Los Angeles. This included managing, hiring, and training referees, organizing teams, managing schedules and creating them, taking part in securing permits, and handling customer service requests, all of which I’ve had experience in doing when I was in college and would not have the chance to do if I pursued a career in the Big Four.

Being Operations Coordinator for ZogSports was more than just running the leagues, it was also creating an experience that both the players and I would enjoy. I always made sure to check in on my leagues by visiting them or joining them as a player (which I joined a league for every day of the week). I believed that if I didn’t have a great time playing or saw that the league did not have a sense of a community, I would go back to my desk and brainstorm how I can make this league better. Because I was going out to the leagues, I was able to create a sense of family among those I played with as those I worked with. One of my fondest memories is when I joined our Flag Football league where my coworkers also joined and we all contributed to bringing this league that at one point only had 3 teams registered to have 12 teams at its peak. Because my coworkers and I gave the league some love and attention to create a better experience for all players, everyone there became a family. Being able to go out to the parks and experience first-hand all the hard work we put in helped create a job experience so unique to the sports industry and made me love what I was doing and I will always consider my ZogSports coworkers as family.

Looking back, I would not have had the experience I had with ZogSports if I did not get comfortable with being uncomfortable and going above and beyond what was expected of me. Living Sport helped get give me that mentality to always seek opportunities to make a job seem more like just a job. Both ZogSports and Living Sport have such a strong passion for building communities and life-long connections and that allowed me to use what I learned in Glasgow to succeed in my non-Big Four jobs.