This is posted as part of our Summer Intern Blog Series. Be sure to come back each week as interns from around the country share their summer experiences with us!
By: Travis Gorsch, @tgorsch3
My name is Travis Gorsch and this summer I will be highlighting my first internship with the Oakland Athletics in community relations. I have been contributing to Front Office Sports for more than year now. When I first joined FOS last June, I was just a couple of weeks away from starting my first internship in sports.
Before I jump in any further, let me flash back to January 26, 2015. I had just recently moved to San Francisco, CA from a small town in Iowa to pursue my Master’s in Sport Management at the University of San Francisco. As graduate students, we receive numerous emails from the USF SM Jobs email account, highlighting job and volunteer opportunities throughout the Bay Area. This particular email was regarding the Oakland A’s Fan Fest on February 8. The deadline to apply was just a couple of days away on January 29. When I started the USF program, I thought I wanted to be a college athletic director. Since I wasn’t really interested in professional sports, I almost let the opportunity to help at Fan Fest pass, but just before 5:00 p.m. on the day of the deadline, I sent an email to the contact listed offering my assistance. I figured I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to go see a professional baseball stadium since there aren’t any in Iowa and especially since I had seen ‘Moneyball’ so many times. The next morning, I received a response back letting me know they would love the additional support.
February 8 finally rolled around and I was all set to help with the Memorabilia Sales area at Fan Fest. I was fortunate enough to assist Amanda Young, the community relations assistant. I had a great experience at Fan Fest and Amanda was able to introduce me to a former USF Sport Management student and alumnus of the program, Melissa Guzman. Melissa was the community relations coordinator for the A’s. We discussed my experience so far in the USF program with most of the topics revolving around how great Dr. Cellini was in my first course. At the end of the day, Melissa asked if I had heard about their community relations internship with the A’s before recommending that I apply for the position.
The second I got back to home to San Francisco, I started pumping out a cover letter and updating my resume to send over right away. I sent my email out at 10:50 p.m. on Sunday night. After receiving a response the following day, they said they would be in touch later that week to set up a time to interview. About two weeks later, I still hadn’t heard anything about an interview time so I decided to follow up again to make sure the opportunity was still available and let them know I was still interested. We settled on an interview for March 2, before I left for Las Vegas. I was nervous going into the interview since it was only my second interview ever. I probably spent more time researching the A’s Community Fund the week leading up to the interview than I did on my homework. On the plus side, I was interviewing with Amanda and Melissa, whom I had met at Fan Fest and who told me about the internship opportunity. After the interview, I felt pretty good, but wasn’t sure how many others had applied for the same position. Two days later, I packed my bags and headed to Las Vegas to volunteer at the West Coast Conference Basketball Championships March 5–9th, not knowing what to expect when I got back.
