When thinking about a sport professional that I wanted to reach out to and establish as a pen pal I was nervous to be honest. While I am a skilled communicator and previously made a living as a salesperson interacting with customers daily, I am naturally an introverted person who enjoys keeping to themselves. I also developed PTSD from my time in the military which has made a bit of a hermit, so this assignment really made me step out of my comfort zone which I appreciated. Because I recently just switched my major from business to sport management, I am still unsure of the direction I want to head with my career. I saw this as an opportunity to explore more into the field of athletic director, this is not a position I could have seen myself in when I was younger, but now that I am a little older and know myself more, I think this is a role I would be interested to pursue. In order to learn more about this role I chose Tom Koller as my pen pal. Tom who is currently an adjunct professor with Old Dominion University, previously was the collegiate athletics director as well as the senior associate athletics director for Buffalo State College. With over thirty-five years of experience in both college and professional sports, as well as raising millions of dollars in sales, development and ticketing I could not think of a more perfect person to reach out to as my pen pal. Tom is currently teaching the sports sales class that I am taking at ODU, so once I realized that he was the person I wanted to speak with and learn from this semester I reached out via email and asked if he would be willing to participate. He was more than happy to spread as much of his vast knowledge of the sports industry, and I am just so excited to learn as much as I can from him this semester.
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