This summer Tom Stallings, a Rice Sport Management faculty member, took trips to both Las Vegas and Portland to facilitate relationships with multiple companies for his Sport Management students.
This is not an uncommon occurrence for Stallings as he takes bi-annual road trips across the country to meet with executives and alumni. These trips to Las Vegas and Portland were no exception. In Las Vegas, Stallings was able to meet with UFC, MGM, the Las Vegas Aces and the Oakland Raiders.
“We choose Las Vegas specifically because our students have a vetted interest in the companies,” Stallings said. “UFC was great because we got a good idea about how the internship process works. We were also able to learn a lot from the Raiders. You have got to learn some of the expectations for a team that’s in transition and what we can do to help our students get ready and be available for a transitioning team.”
Stallings went to UFC on behalf of a rising sophomore in the Sport Management department. He visited the Raiders with the hopes of establishing a pipeline for Sport Management students, since they are a growing company with potential openings and need for interns in the near future. While Las Vegas was a trip for establishing new relationships, Portland was a trip for maintaining strong relationships and catching up with Rice alumni and current Sport Management students.
Stallings met with Adidas, Under Armour and Nike in Portland and also had extra time to meet with current Nike employees and interns such as Reese Rosales ‘19, Madison Nasteff ‘19, Jarvis Sam ‘13, Jesse Tsu ’11 and Jason Petro ‘18. Those current and former Rice students would not be at Nike if not for the relationship Stallings created with Nike years ago.
“When I first got to Rice, working at Nike was a wide-eyed dream as opposed to a tangible opportunity,” Stallings said. “Now we have 13 alumni there and two current students interning with Nike for the summer. We have a pipeline and this relationship is truly feasible.”
It seems that Stallings’ trips this summer were widely successful and will allow Sport Management students to head to Las Vegas and Portland for some exciting opportunities.
Darcy Mickalow ‘19, from Burlington, Ontario, Canada, is majoring in Sport Management as well as minoring in Business.