A future in sport management: Crafting a career through connected learning and experience

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Matt Gauvin knew he wanted sports to be part of his future when he came to Western Michigan University. What he did not know yet was exactly where he fit within the industry.

Western’s sport management program gave him the opportunity to find out. Through his coursework, relationships within the program and connections across the University, Matt began learning about the many careers that exist beyond what fans see on game day. At the same time, the flexibility of his education allowed him to combine sport management with strategic communications and a focus in public relations, creating a path that increasingly reflected his interest in athletic communications.

That combination of academic learning and professional connections helped Matt see WMU Athletics as a place where he could begin putting his interests into practice. He took the initiative to reach out to areas within Athletics and found an opportunity with the strategic communications team. What began with tracking statistics for one team quickly became much more.

Learning the industry by working in it

As Matt gained experience, he continued asking for more responsibility. He began working across soccer, football, hockey and basketball, taking on live statistics, game-day communications, graphics and office responsibilities. By his senior year, he was also helping train incoming student employees.

The work gave Matt something that coursework alone could not: the chance to experience different parts of the sports industry and decide which ones he wanted to make part of his career. One of those opportunities took him to Detroit, where he was selected to work the Mid-American Conference Football Championship—an experience he described as one of the best of his time at Western.

Those experiences helped Matt move from a broad goal of working in sports to a much more specific career direction. During his undergraduate years, he identified becoming a sports information director as his goal.

For Matt, that progression is what made his Western experience so valuable: he could explore the industry, discover where he fit and then shape his education and experiences around that direction.

Building on the experience

While continuing to pursue his master’s degree in sport management at Western, Matt was recently named sports information director for women’s soccer.

Graduate study is allowing him to build on the foundation he developed as an undergraduate while tailoring his education even more closely to where he wants to go professionally. Matt says his undergraduate coursework gave him a broad understanding of areas such as sport governance, facilities and organizational operations. At the graduate level, he is able to go deeper into administration, media, marketing and other areas connected to his career goals.

That progression—from exploring the industry, to gaining experience within it, to specializing around a specific career—is what has defined Matt’s time in sport management at Western. Rather than waiting until graduation to discover what kind of work suited him, he has been able to build his education around those discoveries as they happen.

His experience has even helped open doors for students coming behind him. As Matt took on more responsibility within Athletics, he helped train new student employees, and his supervisors credited his work with demonstrating how valuable students could be within the operation.

Now, as he continues his master’s degree and steps further into the profession, Matt is already doing the work he once identified as his goal—building a career in sports while continuing to shape what comes next.

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