TESM-C 402 Final Video Reflection
Written Internship Reflection
My name is Alex Nielsen. I am a senior sports management student from McCordsville
Indiana graduating in a week or so! This semester I have been an intern at the Indiana High
School Athletic Association (IHSAA). My internship took place on-site at their office on North
Meridian Street in Indianapolis. My supervisor was Brandon Baxter who is the assistant of
assistant commissioner Chris Kaufman. My search process for the internship was a more
unique one I had spent the summer at the NCAA and was looking for a similar role focused on
the support of athletics and athletes. When I started looking, I tried the traditional places like
Pacers Sports and Entertainment where I went through 3 rounds of Interviews and was
unfortunately not selected. Once this occurred, I had to pivot and begin to look for a new
internship and I remembered that the IHSAA offers an internship for their semesters. So, I
chose to send an email and two days later I was set up for an interview. My thoughts on what
the internship would be were vastly different from what I learned in the interview. It was focused
on the support of all staffers from Legal to each Sports administrator to our Sports Information
Director. The support and role that I would provide are extremely important to the fall sports with 8 sports running concurrently from August for just a few months lots of items and dedication are needed for each sport and preparations for tournaments come quickly. My internship experience has truly been one of the best ones. I have been a part of what I have been able to gain and being a part of the IHSAA was wonderful. Taken in as basically a full-timer just with the title of being an intern I had responsibilities to work on the programs for all sports state finals, working on projects including creating cumulative entry lists for sports, updating scores in MaxPreps throughout tournament times, and lots more.
This experience for me personally has taught me a lot this kind of a role is one that I
want to be a part of with the service and mission of the organization focused on the betterment
of athletics and athletes. It has been one of the emotional connections that my sisters and I
have been a part of throughout our time and my youngest her current time in high school
athletics. To me what the IHSAA provides is something special to Indiana, the amount of
support and assistance that is provided is greater than in so many other states that I have seen.
For me personally as well I have been able to learn that I like the work environment a bit more
conventional than others with the week being more of an 8-4 and less overtime than past
experiences. For me, tournament time was something that I enjoyed more the extra time and
work were very fun while it had stressful moments I saw the effort and fruits of our labor being in
action at each of the state finals from the programs to the Public Announcement scripts for
Champion Educator Awards. Where I feel like I grew the most personally was in my confidence
in my work and my ability to feel confident when handed a task that I would be ready and
prepped to complete the task not only to the level of the staff but going above and beyond to
show the level of detail of my work has been something amazing to feel like I am here making
an impact and helping to make high school athletics in Indiana a better place one day at a time.
For me, in the sports management profession, I have begun to find out that politicalness
unfortunately lives at the forefront of many efforts by governmental forces. I have seen this with
the rules and regulations regarding many aspects like transfers between schools and from
international schools. As well I have begun to find out that there are many different ways to
approach situations where there are high amounts of emotion and charge and dealing with
those people and cases can be something that is needed to make sure that when representing
whether over the phone or in person you are a good steward of the company. The skills that
were most important at the IHSAA for me were my adaptability and working on the fly at the
State Finals many moments of planning and what we thought would happen had to be quickly
adjusted to make sure that the games and planning were running smoothly. This included
talking to team representatives to make sure they knew what changes had been made to time
scripts at football and when they would need to be in specific places. As well as project
management I have had lots of projects on a daily basis where I must make sure that once I
have completed another I am quick to make the timeframes these projects are needed by,
especially during busy times or when something has to go public in our publications for schools
and the public. This was also prevalent at the state finals with my need to be a part of multiple
endeavors from helping our corporate partners and sponsors to having to work on the write-ups of the Mental Attitude Awards before the 4th quarter so they could be ready for the TV broadcast and the radio broadcasters to interview the recipients at the end of the game. As well it was also paramount to make sure that we had the records of the state finals games ready and prepared so we could get the game recaps out quickly for the public and newspapers. I would say the biggest personal and professional impact for me would be the increased confidence that I can provide a full-time level of assistance to an organization and be prepped for a new role with many kinds of organizations.
For me personally, the internship exceeded my expectations. I knew that what I was
going to be a part of at the IHSAA was something special and the internship was truly that for
me. What I was able to do and be a part of was amazing to get to work at the forefront of high
school athletics and make a difference in these kids' experiences at the state finals. As I have
said, the feeling of being relied on full-time as an asset for the organization was a massive part
of what I was looking for. The experience of being able to work on a variety of roles and
responsibilities will help me to find out what comes next in my professional career and
personally, for what I see for myself down the line. I feel that I contributed a lot to the IHSAA, and I feel that it has been something that has shown since Chris and Brandon have offered to keep me on as an elevated intern role while I start looking for full-time jobs. I would say that my
consistency and being a team player willing to help on any project big or small is what has
helped drive me forward at the IHSAA and show my value to the organization. I would like to
say I could name the contributions but throughout the 5 months, there have been countless
projects and tasks each for different things but working for the better of the IHSAA and all that
we serve. If I could change one thing about my internship site I would say it would be the
structure of the internship while there is a good amount of specific items it would be good for all interns to get structured time to work with all the sports and sports administrators and get to
know them and how they can help them through the internship. This was something that I
sought out but not all interns in the program may be that way or do what I did so having some
dedicated time would be good. The advice that I would give to students prepping for this
internship would be just to be ready for all things. This internship can be a very up-and-down
thing and change each day with what each administrator or commissioner needs concerning the state finals planning and what’s going on with each sport and their current season. I would
wholeheartedly recommend this site to anyone who wants to get into athletics the people you
get to learn from and the things that you would work on are truly one in a kind and I would
recommend them to all.