This is the final post for this portfolio that represents my mentorship experience with the Tiffin University Women's Wrestling (TUWW) program as an Operations Intern. I logged 253 hours during this experience and learned a lot. I have included my timesheet in this post as well as the PROJECT portion of this portfolio. This entire experience added to my personal and professional development. I learned a lot about relationship development, relationship management, and the importance of genuine relationship building in collegiate athletics recruiting. This relates closely to a recent class on organizational behavior (OB) that I had. OB deals with the people, relationships, and processes that govern and compose an organization. It uses the tools of sociology, psychology, and other 'soft sciences' to better understand organizations and how to make better decisions. OB often discusses the importance of relationships, in understanding. motivating, and leading individuals. My experience with HC Minnard was great. He did a good job of giving me tasks and then allowing me the freedom to accomplish those tasks how I wanted. This made be feel valued and empowered and increased my motivation to help TUWW. This aligns with current research regarding employee empowerment, employee engagement, and employee satisfaction that I studied in my HR Management class and my HR in Sports Management class. We communicated regularly through text, email, and phone call. We also had one-one-one and face-to-face meetings in addition to meetings with GA Hites. I felt like my input was valued and incorporated into decision making. In addition, I know that my recruiting recommendations were respected and translated into action (and several signed recruits) This mentorship has increased my motivation to work in collegiate sports and international competition. It has proven that I enjoy working with athletes in this age and skill level and that I am capable of building relationships with them based on authentic mutual respect. I also got a peak into the operational side of working in this field and still want to pursue it. If any other MBA candidates are considering their mentorship experience with the TUWW I would recommend it. It was a great experience for me. Recruiting requires travel and time on the road, including multiple overnight stays in hotels and multi-hour drives, so be prepared for that if you want to do the job correctly. Also, remember that recruiting is sales, and you need to be available to the recruits on their schedule and not just yours. If they ask questions you need to follow up and find them answers. You are their primary connection to the university and the program and need to be the best reflection of both. It was a great experience and was beneficial to my overall MBA education.
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As my last official duty for this mentorship I completed the year end statistics for the TUWW program. I updated and finalized all visual representations and created category leaders for wins, takedowns, turns, and points scored. HC Minnard will use this information to determine year-end awards. I also spent time working on my record of contacts with recruits and updating my recruit pipeline to reflect what phase of recruitment each recruit is currently in, or during which phase they exited our process. This will be provided under the PROJECTS section of this portfolio before the formal end date or the experience.
I am still trying to develop more ways to analyze and interpret the statistics that I have collected during this competitive season. Sports statistics and analysis is a growing field within the sports business world, and yet wrestling has been left largely untouched. However, there is a new company called QuantWrestling, that I am looking into to see if they have capabilities to help analyze this data. If it is something they are able to help with I could get an estimate for the cost of their services and take it to HC Minnard to see if it's something he's interested in using in the future. I have learned a lot through this process, and I will post a final reflection post at a later date (and before the official end date), but I am surprised by the length of the recruiting process for an individual athlete. It requires a large amount of time and energy on each and every recruit for very minimal returns. However, if that's what is required then our recruiting efforts must meet those requirements. If HC Minnard chooses to retain me in some capacity for the next season it will be interesting to see what results these recruiting efforts attain. This was the third and final day of the OHSAA Girls state wrestling tournament. All athletes competing this day had already secured their place on the podium among the top 8 female wrestlers at their weight class in the entire state. The majority of our recruits made the podium. This isn't surprising (we are trying to recruit the best) but we are also recruiting multiple athletes who didn't place and we would still like to have in our program. There were no recruits that underperformed so badly that we reconsidered whether we wanted them to be a part of our program. In contrast, multiple recruits outperformed expectations and moved up in our recruiting priorities. As an organization, our recruiting efforts were streamlined and coordinated. I text recruits immediately upon match completion. A positive response would prompt me to suggest meeting them at the arena. If they responding positively I would introduce them to HC Minnard. Before making the introduction I would check my detailed recruiting notes and provide HC Minnard with any needed information. HC Minnard, showing his trust in me and my ability to do my job, would then use that information when talking with recruits. This information might be as simple as their intended major, personal backstory, or style of competing. This shows that HC Minnard doesn't micromanage and instead trusts his people to complete the tasks that are assigned. While being helpful, this also provides me with the added motivation to make sure that my information is reliable. I wouldn't want to embarrass HC Minnard or TUWW by confusing recruit information or leading him to say something to a recruit or family that wasn't accurate.
This was a fun day because we had multiple recruits make the State Finals (one even won a state title). It was fun to share in the celebration of success with individual athletes, whether through text or in person, and to see their hard work pay off. We also had added advantages this day. HC Minnard brought down two of our wrestlers, National Qualifier Erin Martin and National Runner-Up Jenavi Alejandro, and used them to help recruit for the program. They accompanied HC Minnard and GA Hites on multiple trips to talk with recruits and families while I engaged with others. This was a smart strategic move by HC Minnard to leverage some of the advantages we have. We also used this time to pass out fliers for a prospect camp that we are hosting on 4/22 on campus. This event will have two different practices (totaling five hours of practice time) and include a campus tour and other activities. This will serve to get recruits and their families on campus and for them to develop even more comfortability with them. This was the second day of the OHSAA Girls state wrestling tournament. It was another successful day of recruiting . The quarterfinals, semi-finals, and multiple consolation rounds were wrestled on this day. This made for an interesting day as a few recruits were eliminated from the tournament and many advanced into placement matches. Some recruits were disappointed and needed encouragement while other were elated and wanted to celebrate their success. This was enjoyable for me because it was a form of coaching. While technical and match advice wasn't offered (except for once or twice when asked for my the athlete) emotional and motivational coaching and support was still required. I believe that bonding with these athletes and forming genuine bonds with them, and having a real interest in their personal and athletic success, is the right thing to do and will also be beneficial for our program. Wrestling is a strange sport because of the year-round intensity it required and the grueling and physical nature of the sport. For this reason, bonds formed between wrestling teammates and wrestling coaches are extremely important. Having mutual trust and understanding between coaches and athletes allows for those athletes to be pushed harder and trained better. I'm currently taking an Organizational Behavior class that is starting to talk about some of the ways that the behavioral sciences can impact the way organizations operate and perform. A lot of this is used in coaching wrestling and recruiting for wrestling. I believe that demonstrating the trust, and mutual interest we have in our athletes and potential future athletes gives us a distinct recruiting advantage. I'm hoping to continue to learn more in this class, and others, that I can continue to apply to my career.
This was the first day of the inaugural OHSAA Girls Wrestling state tournament. The event was sponsored by RUDIS, the leading supplier of amateur wrestling equipment and apparel in the United States, and was a massive success. The girls event was held on the campus of The Ohio State University, at the Jerome Schottenstein Center, and was held along with the boys tournament. The entire TUWW program was represented at all three days of the tournament. HC Minnard, GA Hites, and myself were in attendance for the whole event and made lots of recruiting progress. This event was a good demonstration of our successful communication and information sharing. The season-long, open dialogue we've had about recruits paid off. While scouting the entire tournament, there were approximately 30 recruits we were targeting more closely. These recruits are individuals who are already established in our recruiting pipeline. We watched these athletes compete through the day, texted with them, and met with athletes and parents.
I keep a running log of how the recruits were performing, and tried to text them as close to the end of their competitions as possible, to keep myself from forgetting and to make sure that they new we were there watching. All of the recruits I texted responded positively to all my communication efforts. While that venue changed, this was still a pretty standard recruiting operation. Floor access was restricted and so face-to-face contact with recruits was limited. However, there was plenty of space in the concourse where we engaged with athletes and their stakeholders. Athletes and parents seemed to be impressed that we were in attendance and enjoyed talking with us an celebrating their success. Today was the Ohio High School Athletic Association Girl's Wrestling Regional Tournaments. Four different regional tournaments were held around the state. The four sites were: Marysville High School, Mentor High School, Olentangy Orange High School, and Harrison High School. I knew that I would attend either the Marysville Regional or the Orange Regional because of their proximity. I researched both regionals, and the teams that were entered into each, and decided that the Marysville Regional would be a better use of my time. A few more current recruits were entered in the Marysville regional. This regional had 16 current recruits entered and competing. I had previously texted all recruits letting them know that I would be attending. I made contact with all recruits and even came away with two new recruits. A coaching contact I have previously made approached me and told me about two of his wrestlers who were interested in competing at the collegiate level. I spoke to those wrestlers, got their contact information, and recorded that information in my "Recruiting Spreadsheet" that will be available in the PROJECTS portion of this portfolio upon the completion of this experience. All of my interactions with recruits, coaches, parents, and stakeholders were positive and fruitful. The main goal of the day was to work on relationship development. By that metric, it was a successful day. I also spoke to two recruits who recently committed to other universities. Those interactions were also positive. I removed one recruit from our recruit pipeline because we do not have her major or anything similar.
Now that the competition season has ended, it will be interesting to get a different view of the organization, through the offseason operations. I am interested to see if the recruiting will speed up after the OHSAA State tournament being held this upcoming weekend. Once this whole year-long recruiting cycle has concluded I will be able to better assess the success of my efforts. Today I watched film and performed statistical recording and analysis for the NCWWA Super Region III tournament. This was the tournament that resulted in the TUWW program having four national qualifiers that will compete at the National tournament in Iowa this weekend. I did not travel to this event and there was a lack of competition film that was recorded in person. So, I had to find the competition elsewhere. I found the entire event had been livestreamed on Youtube. Not able to find a better source, this is what I was left with. Two mats were used for the competition and there was a camera and subsequent video corresponding to each mat. Both of these videos were six hour long blocks of un-edited video. I needed to find the matched that featured TUWW athletes. I set the playback speed at 2x the normal speed and skipped through the video until I saw one of our singlets. I would then stop the fast playback, watch the video, and record the corresponding statistics. It took me four hours to get through six hours of video.
I am becoming increasingly upset with the lack of measurable recruiting success through this mentorship. However, I have to remind myself of the things I tell my athletes, to be focused on the process and performance goals rather than on outcome based goals. I am making good contacts with athletes, coaches, parents, administrators, and other stakeholders. I am moving recruits through the "Conceptual Recruiting Model" and tracking my interactions. Tiffin University hosted the 2020 NCAA Super Region III national qualifier tournament. It was held in The Heminger Center. I spent time in the Heminger Center as well as some time in the Adelsperger wrestling complex and carrying supplies between the two. Ten Division 2 men's wrestling teams were competing for their individuals to advance to the NCAA National Tournament in a few weeks in Iowa. The top three qualifiers in each weight advance to the National Tournament.
This was a good example of how the men's and women's wrestling programs can work together for mutual benefit. Many of our women helped work the event. This work included a variety of tasks including, but not limited to ticketing and concessions. This serves as a fundraiser for the women's program and allows the men's program to host the event and for our wrestlers to gain the advantage of competing at home. This allows them to sleep in their own beds and not have to deal with the complexities of traveling for an event. We also had a recruit visit during the event. One of our wrestler had her sister on campus. This sister is one of our top recruits and is a nationally ranked wrestler and state champion in her home state. It was a good chance for her too see how we host an event and how our programs support each other. HC Minnard and GA Hites also helped with other tasks through the day that made the event flow smoother. I spoke with TU Men's and Women's wrestlers through the day as well as other program coaches, parents, and stakeholders to further build relationships. The university athletic department recently published a press release highlighting our programs recent success. We had four athletes qualify for the NCAA national tournament in March. I texted that press release to every recruit in our pipeline. The press release was well-received by the recruits. It sparked multiple conversations and allowed me to work on relationship development with multiple recruits.
I have recorded lots of statistics during this experience and I am trying to think of a way to properly analyze them. I am thinking of performing an analysis to see the correlation between wins and various statistical categories that I have been tracking. However, I do not think the volume of data is currently sufficient to justify basing any decisions on said analysis. I will still probably perform it in the future, and I will continue to perform these tests as I get more data, but I won't base too many decisions on the results at this time. I spent time working on statistics from the Bearcat open that was held at McKendree University recently. I updated the ongoing "Statistics Spreadsheet" and the visual representation contained within. I also worked on tracking some recruit interactions and updating my recruiting statistics. This internship is now coming to an end. The NCAA tournament is coming up, TUWW has four qualifiers! This has been a great experience for me. I believe that my recruiting expectations were overly optimistic. I have been doing this for four months and we only have on commit during that time. However, only a handful of recruits are truly removed from the recruiting pipeline as they have either committed to a different university or told me directly that they are not interested in attending TU. I knew that this would be a long process, choosing a college is a big decision for these athletes. I expected to learn a lot and I have. I have learned a lot about relationship development, personal sales, organizational communication, and collegiate athletics recruiting. These skills will all be useful to me as I continue my career and work on developing a Regional Olympic Training Center here at Tiffin University. I would have liked to spend more time at the Adelsperger complex but I was so busy recruiting on the road the it wasn't feasible. I know that I will be spending more time there coming up, but that will be at the conclusion of this mentorship/internship.
I actually learned a lot about management and the way that I enjoy being managed. HC Minnard does an excellent job of providing guidance and then allowing space for the task to be completed. He sets a vision, selects the people, and lets them do what he has selected them to do. This is very useful, especially in an organization as small as ours. |
Graham GriderTiffin University Women's Wrestling Intern. Team Ohio Freestyle/Greco-Roman Coach. Tiffin University M.B.A. student Archives
April 2023
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