Aaron
Rodriguez
August 5,
2019
Mini
Paper #4
Cohort
21S
As a
middle schooler and leading into my early years of high school, I went into a
phase of watching a lot of motivational videos. A lot of these videos helped me
to gain an interest in focusing on what I wanted to do in life. As I watch the
various number of videos the one phrase that was most memorable to me was “What
is your why?” This phrase was a phrase that I pondered upon since I did not
know what I wanted to do with my life till I figured out what I wanted to do
with my life in my sophomore year of high school, Sport Management. In my
sophomore year in high school, I knew that my dream was to be in the Sport
Management field and it was all inspired by the movie Moneyball. Interestingly, the movie was about Billy Bean the
general manager of the Oakland Athletics and also alumni of my high school, Mt.
Carmel. Instantly, because we came from the same high school I looked up to him
because we had come from the same school and I believed I could be like him.
The movie was about a baseball player who had a career-ending injury early in
his career who decided to use his knowledge and connections to pursue a career
in the front office of the Oakland Athletics. Seeing his struggle of working
with the Oakland Athletics and producing a successful team with a low budget
and a failing culture by finding players that were odd but still could produce
was inspiring. His experience showed me that people can be successful even if
they are not in the best circumstance. In Wooden (2005) he described his
practice facilities and how they were not adequate to produce a national
championship team but despite that he had insufficient facilities he didn’t
look for excuses he looked for solutions,“ There would be no excuses in the
future, only a careless search for solutions” (p.195). Wooden doesn't give any
excuses to give up, but looks for solutions. This can connect to my journey in
sport as well as in life. While in college I didn’t go to the best school with
the best facilities and prestigious reputation but, through hard work,
determination and “ a careless search for solutions” I was able to to use the
resources I did have to get to where I am today, in a prestigious graduate
school. During this time I didn’t look for excuses I looked for solutions no
matter how long it took this helped me discover my greatest strength,
resiliency. Wooden (2005) depicts that in order to become successful you must
work hard now “As a director, I would try to teach them how to give the best
performance possible during the rehearsals” (p.214). Wooden is talking about
that in order to get to the position that you want to be in life you must work
at it now. This hard work ethic mentality has become my greatest strength. My
resiliency, the willingness to wake up really early and stay up late to get work
done has pushed me through my college career, this became more prominent as I
had many papers where I would stay up all night and in a couple of cases stay
up two days to finish the paper. It didn’t matter how tired I was or however I
was feeling, I had to push my body to its limits and beyond to get things done.
Looking back on it I felt it was all worth it because for those small moments
of mental pain and fatigue I had a large reward of knowledge and experience (and
a good grade). I continue to have this similar mindset as I am in my master’s
program of willing to make a sacrifice for a greater reward spending as much
time needed in order to get assignments done and look for opportunities in the
field of sport. Opportunities are now in an abundance and I am looking to take
advantage of these opportunities such as internships, job opportunities, and
the alumni network. Tapping into these opportunities will be beneficial to my
growth in the sports industry to help me understand my interests in the field,
as long as I work hard. Currently, my interests are in basketball, baseball,
and football and the marketing tactics of these organizations to develop
marketing plans. These functions of the business interest me because they can
take organizations and events and turn them from a small event to a mega-event
through marketing and public relations tactics. I am looking to explore these
opportunities through my current opportunities with Girls Football Association and the Los Angeles Rams. Each opportunity
allows me to explore two aspects of marketing within the sports industry. With Girls Football Association I am
developing schools to target and develop a marketing plan in order to inform
theses schools about the opportunity of establishing girls football at their
campus. This is very different from the Los Angeles Rams job where I am going
to be a part of the more interactive part of marketing. I will be talking to
people and informing them of the 50/50 raffle ticket program and answer any
questions they have about it. In order
to be truly successful in pursuing these opportunities, I not only need to
understand my reasons for pursuing my goals and strengths but also my
weaknesses so I can improve upon them.
One of
them is my insensitivity, usually when people come to me with their problems,
especially when I am working. My drive within myself is felt by others and when
I get into my zone there is nothing that will distract me which makes me ignore
or become insensitive to others.This has been shown mostly with my
conversations with my parents. Most times when they call, I am very focused on
my work and their call in my head is a distraction and I try and make the
conversation as short as possible. I can tell that my parents still want to
talk to me and ask about everything that I am doing. However, I know I have
things to do so I try and cut the conversation so I can get back to what I am
doing. This is something that I need to improve on because in the future I will
be working in teams and we constantly need to be collaborating especially in
times of stressful situations to find solutions.
Looking
back on all my experiences I want to answer the question “What is your why?”
Through all my experiences I have found that my why is upholding a legacy and
developing my own. From that moment of watching Moneyball and seeing that someone from the same high school could
accomplish being a successful general manager started my journey to do the same
and become like him and develop my own legacy. As I was in my junior year of
high school I began to that when the moment comes when I die I want something
good to be said about me. I wanted to have a life, a life that mattered and not
just merely existed on the planet. This pursuit of legacy has pushed me to do
things that are uncomfortable Wooden speaks upon this when he speaks upon the
NCAA banning dunking in the league “Although I supported outlawing the dunk for
several reasons, including that it turned into a showboating device” (p.226).
This new rule was a joy to Coach Wooden, but it did not sit well with star
player Lewis Alcindor. From this new rule, Alcindor had to develop other moves
in his game and from this hard work and the unforeseen circumstance it helped
develop an unforeseen skill the “Kareem Sky Hook”. During my life, I was able
to be put into situations where I had to be uncomfortable. Once I had
experienced them and overcame them I actually began to look for them. I joined
an organization, I competed in marketing research competitions and I decided to
apply for graduate school. All of these started as something that was
uncomfortable and when they asked if I wanted to join no matter how unsure I
was about the situation, I just raised my hand and signed up. That is the first
step to being successful in anything, signing up. Once I had the courage to
sign up I found that there was no turning back I had to complete what I had
signed up for and do my best in it and put in the work. Being put in these
uncomfortable situations helped me develop my “Sky Hook”. I was able to develop
good social skills which helped me with gaining the courage to meet new people.
Other skills that I developed was my leadership skills and this was exercised
by developing and coordinating projects. My leadership and social skills were
constantly tested when I had to collaborate with new people for projects and
had to reach out to new organizations on and off-campus in order to coordinate
an event. Some projects included various community service projects, social
events and my largest project the Forget-Us-Not
benefit concert. During this event, I had to include all of the skills that I
learned. I had to use my social skills to collaborate with my team as well as
the non-profit organization which we were working with. I also had to use my
resiliency and leadership skills to coordinate and manage the event while being
prepared for any snafus. All of my
uncomfortable situations helped develop my greatest skills. These skills help
me to continue my journey of life and to pursue the construction of my legacy
to answer my “why?”
References
John
wooden wooden on leadership how to create a winning organization (2005, McGraw
hill)
