{"id":199,"date":"2026-02-21T03:55:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/?p=199"},"modified":"2026-02-21T03:55:43","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:55:43","slug":"sport-professional-penpal-making-the-connection-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/2026\/02\/21\/sport-professional-penpal-making-the-connection-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport Professional Penpal: Making the Connection (Part One)!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For my sports penpal assignment, I took to TikTok to find people (mostly women in sports) who I&#8217;m following as a way to reach out. I found multiple people with their emails listed in their bios, and ultimately reached out to four people in total. In the end, I chose to work with Julia Mendelson, being that my dream job would be to work as a social media assistant for a sports team. Here was my initial email that explained the assignment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"447\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM-1024x447.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM-1024x447.png 1024w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM-300x131.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM-768x335.png 768w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM-750x327.png 750w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-20-at-10.36.17\u202fPM.png 1132w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile\" style=\"grid-template-columns:29% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-201 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-750x1000.jpg 750w, https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40673\/2026\/02\/IMG_1575-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>Julia Mendelson graduated from Miami University with a degree in Sport Leadership and Management. She currently works for the San Jose Sharks as a Content Engagement and Social Media Assistant and has previously worked in the AHL for the Colorado Eagles and in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For my sports penpal assignment, I took to TikTok to find people (mostly women in sports) who I&#8217;m following as a way to reach out. I found multiple people with their emails listed in their bios, and ultimately reached out to four people in total. In the end, I chose to work with Julia Mendelson, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link btn\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/2026\/02\/21\/sport-professional-penpal-making-the-connection-part-one\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":1},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kalesportblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}