Northern Exposure
Note: This article is co-authored by Madeline Hoswell.
As an Administrative Assistant for the Iowa Baseball program, no day is the same. Job responsibilities range from running evaluation camps, creating pitch calling cards, assisting the nutritionist, organizing and selling merchandise, posting on various social media accounts, helping with practice as well as running technology, and everything in between. This role has given us many learning experiences and opportunities. We both are driven to expose ourselves to a number of different roles within the baseball industry. This led each of us to apply for Event and Hospitality summer internships with the Northwoods League with the hopes of expanding our knowledge on baseball league operations in a non-collegiate environment and to bring those skills back in the fall to help with the success of the Iowa Baseball Program.
Originally, we were both planning to stay and help Iowa during the Big 10 tournament in mid-May, then proceed immediately to both the Madison Mallards and the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters to start the Northwoods League season. With the state of the world during a pandemic and the NCAA cancelling the remainder of spring sports, our summer internship opportunities were suddenly uncertain. We had heard little news in the months of March and April, as the league was determining if they could play a shortened season, or a season at all. Finally, in June, we were both headed to Wisconsin to start our internships in an unpredictable summer.
Bailey:
I was the Event and Hospitality Intern with the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters for the summer, where my role primarily focused on food and beverage, supervising gameday staff, and most importantly, making sure that Rafters fans had an unforgettable and positive experience. With strict sanitary precautions, the Rafters were only allowing 650 fans into the park, where in most normal seasons the grandstands would be packed with 2100 screams echoing throughout Witter Field. Even though there would be fewer fans, there was still a significant amount of prep and planning that needed to be done to make sure things moved just as smoothly as they would during a normal season. The two weeks before the season opener were spent pulling weeds, repainting the ballpark in cranberry red, graveling the warning track, and building a deck for premium seating in the stands. The preparation for the season was labor intensive, but I took every opportunity I could to learn and understand the full extent of operating a ballpark, as well as some life skills along the way.
The season started and the stadium was full of 650 hungry and excited fans. My gamedays were spent ensuring all food and beverages were stocked at each hospitality point, assisting gameday staff, and feeding both teams a meal before and after the game. I wanted to learn everything I could about the ins and outs of preparing for a game, so I would take opportunities on non-game days to learn how to care for and maintain a dirt field, and be versatile in my role to ensure that I was doing everything I could to help.
Within the University of Iowa Baseball Program, I have been given the tremendous opportunity to explore and work within other manager departments. Coming into the program I knew that I wanted to work in the baseball industry and was interested in biomechanics. With the amazing experiences I’ve had at Iowa, I found my passion in player development and pitch design and continuing to work toward my aspiration of becoming a pitching coach. After expressing my enthusiasm and interests, the program did not hesitate to allow me to work in the video and scouting department as well as continue my administrative assistant role. I was able to bring the knowledge of working technology like Rapsodo, Edgertronic, and field cameras used for scouting purposes to the Rafters organization.
With my interest and enthusiasm for pitching and scouting, I was so excited when the Rafters asked me to operate Synergy Sports Technology for the team. With this role, I ensured that each camera was set-up at the correct angle for recording before each home game as well as cutting and uploading the video onto Synergy after each game. Toward the end of the season, many interns had to leave early to return to their colleges for the start of the school year. Along with working event and hospitality and Synergy, I was asked to take over as Official Scorekeeper for the Rafters for the remainder of the season. After watching the training videos for the Northwoods League new scorebook program, my game days now consisted of sitting in the press box and making sure plays were scored and uploaded correctly.
Throughout my internship, I was able to learn more about the importance of marketing and customer service in the sport industry, as well as having new experiences in my specific areas of interests. I am thankful that the Rafters saw my potential and supported my interests to give me experiences that will help serve the Iowa Baseball Program as well as my future internships and career.
Madeline:
Event and Hospitality intern for the Madison Mallards; this was how I was supposed to be spending my summer. Instead, in the month of June I was helping at the Duck Pond waiting to hear what summer ball would look like. In the meantime, jobs consisted of maintaining the ballpark, promoting events, directing cars on the field for drive-in movies, running concessions, answering the office phone, and learning new skills. Having a slow start to the season allowed me to learn the ticketing system for the stadium, the Adobe basics, as well as understanding the process that the Mallards took when trying to create a safe plan for a possible season during a global pandemic.
When the Mallards announced their season cancelation in June, I expressed my desire to be exposed to other summer collegiate baseball program operations. Because of the work ethic I had shown in Madison and the passion I had shown for baseball, one of the supervisors, Cassidy Sepnieski, reached out to the Green Bay Booyah in hopes of finding me a position. At first, they expressed that they needed assistance with concessions, but Cassidy saw greater potential in my abilities elsewhere.
The phone rang at 8:00 a.m. on June 30, with the statement that would change my summer. “The Booyah need an official scorekeeper, are you interested? They need you to start tomorrow for opening day” - Cassidy. I was in Green Bay 5 hours later. Upon arrival, my job not only consisted of being the Official Scorekeeper but also Operations/Clubhouse intern. Tasks included ballpark maintenance, gameday setup/cleanup, team laundry, feeding teams meals before and after the game, constantly sanitizing player areas, and of course, keeping score of all home games.
Because of the experience and knowledge I have gained with the Iowa baseball manager program and the little time I spent in Madison, I found more ways to get involved. I started with managing social media, which consisted of posting highlights to the Booyah Instagram (intern introductions, player takeovers, game day activities), creating the game day lineup and tweeting it out before each game, posting ballpark promotions, as well as responding to messages/replies from fans. I also wanted to find ways that I could help both the team and the coaching staff. I started small by organizing the laundry in numerical order and hanging up the correct pair of pants with each jersey (this seems trivial, but with the team not having access to a locker room due to COVID precautions, it helped them be game ready upon arriving at the ballpark). I also wanted to find a way to gain experience with player development. I did so by working with the pitching coach and pitchers by collecting video to create release point overlay videos. Both players and coaches were ecstatic to get developmental feedback, especially because COVID had taken away technology that they had planned to have during the summer.
Throughout this summer of many uncertainties, I am certain I have grown in many ways. I developed new relationships that I plan to continue, both in Madison and Green Bay. I picked up valuable skills in ticket sales, marketing, digital art, social media, and operations. I will forever be grateful for the opportunities that both the Mallards and the Booyah gave me.
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Our summer experiences with the Northwoods League were truly unlike any other. With a global pandemic we both were fortunate to finish a full season and continue to work in the sport and baseball industry when things were uncertain. Our work ethic and extreme dedication to helping both the Iowa Baseball program and the Rafters, Mallards, and Booyah this summer has opened many doors for our careers and we are grateful for the support from all organizations. Being able to work for the Northwoods League this summer has continued to instill faith and confidence in our abilities and help us continue to bring a growth mindset to the Iowa Baseball Program. We both value being empowered females in a male dominated industry and are excited to continue to prove that all things are attainable with a willingness to grow and get better every day. “Some women fear the fire, some women simply become it”-R.H. Sin. We are excited to see what is next!
