The person I chose for my professional contact is Chad Snodgrass. Snodgrass is in his fourth season at Old Dominion University and he is the director of sports performance. Before Snodgrass was ever at Old Dominion he spent his entire career at West Virginia which was also his alma mater. For the seven years he coached at West Virginia before he got to ODU he was a strength and conditioning coach working exclusively with the football team. In eight of the nine years coach Snodgrass was at West Virginia being a full time coach the mountaineers made it to a bowl game. He began his career as a strength and conditioning graduate assistant where he worked with football as well as soccer teams. When Snodgrass was in college, he played on the offensive line where he was a guard and tackle from 2007-2011.
Coach Snodgrass has many duties to fulfill being the head of strength and conditioning. He has to create workouts, set up workouts, clean the weight room, make diets for athletes, monitor weight, teach athletes nutrition, teach workouts, and more. For creating workouts he has to find which specific workouts are most beneficial for each athlete and sports. He has to go around the weight room making sure it is prepared for the athletes to actually do the workout. He has to clean the weight room each week multiple times a week in order to limit the spread of sickness and keep the equipment as fresh as possible. He has to make a dietary plan for certain individuals who may need to gain weight or lose weight and he also has to monitor each person’s weight every day for reasons such as health and safety. He holds meetings once a week with his athletes so that he can go over nutrition and how to eat the proper way as athletes as well as teaching athletes how to properly workout to reduce risk of injury.
I chose Chad Snodgrass because he is my strength coach. This is something I am considering doing as a career option so it fits my personal interests. Because he is my coach I was able to go up to him in person and kindly ask if he would be interested in being part of these assignments for me for my class and he said yes.
Sport Media Diet
My sports media consumption diet is very broad. I get media consumption through mainly social media but in a variety of ways. I use social media platforms such as instagram, X (twitter), tik tok, and more. I also use platforms like youtube and thundercloud that are not as much social media. Platforms like instagram and X are good for alerts and updates. A lot of times those are where you see breaking news or score updates and things like that or also podcasts. A lot of players have their own podcasts now which you find mostly through social media. I use youtube and thundercloud for more film purposes being a student athlete. Youtube and thundercloud are good for breaking down film on opponents and learning tendencies and things like that.
My sports diet has changed in the last five years in a couple of ways. Five years ago when I was still in high school I saw a lot of things through newspapers. When it came to seeing score updates or injuries and things like that I saw that mainly in newspapers. I also saw some things through the news channels. News channels showed a lot of game highlights or spotlights for players of the week and other awards for things in that category. Watching film was different too for me because rather than youtube and thundercloud I was using something called hudl to watch film.
In the next five years there are a few changes I think can occur. Main thing I think will be different is the type of social media platforms that are used. Everything comes and goes and I can see a new platform being created for sports itself and that will take over the social media platforms that are being used now. If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing I would change how many different platforms there are to find sports info or even watch things. I would make one big channel and platform that all things sports related like watching, communicating and things of that nature are on to make everything easier and more smooth going.
Social Media Persona
I have this persona for a variety of different reasons. The first reason I have this persona is because of my love and passion for sports. I grew up with sports in my blood. My dad and grandfather were huge wrestlers so wrestling was my first sport before I took on football as well. I have since then continued playing sports till this day where I play football at Old Dominion University. Another reason I have this persona is branding and marketing. I have to use my social media platforms very carefully. The main reason I have to do this is NIL. NIL is name, image, and likeness and it’s how people perceive you. This is a way for people to pay athletes for their performance and brand on and off the field. This is why I have to be careful. I must build up my brand on social media. This means I have to show the world who I am and what they want to see. I am a football player and that is why this is my persona. Another reason I have this persona is because truthfully I do not like social media all that much. Social media to me is just a fake way to show people how happy you are. You only see what people post on social media meaning you would not post the negative times of life only the positive. I also just like to stay to myself. I am a very private person and keep my social life to myself. That is why when you go through my social media, ninety percent of the posts you will see are about football and a majority of them are not even my posts, they are other peoples posts that I collaborate with. These are all the main reasons my social media persona is what it is.
