4 Tips for Being a Mentor in Sports and Entertainment

Baltimore Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta (left) and former Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome (BaltimoreRavens.com).

One of the best mentor-mentee relationships we’ve seen in sports and entertainment is within the Baltimore Ravens personnel staff. Since the team’s debut in 1996, the team has only known two general managers — Ozzie Newsome and Eric DeCosta.

Starting out as a Player Personnel Assistant, then becoming an area scout and various other roles within the organization, DeCosta worked his way up and become Newsome’s top assistant in 2012. The Ravens continued their success on the field while DeCosta got some of the best tutelage around from a two-time Super Bowl champion GM.

DeCosta’s rise in the Ravens’ organization was apparent and he could have easily left at some point. But the value he saw in continuing to work alongside his biggest mentor in Newsome — as well as others like Pat Moriarty or Dick Cass — was too auspicious.

“Had I had gone to another team — all new faces, new organization, new people — that would be, in my mind, a little more challenging to not have the relationships and things that I have been able to develop here over the last 23 years,” said DeCosta in a 2019 interview with The Baltimore Sun. “That would be tough for me. But being here, having been able to observe people, I know the quality of people that we have here, I know this community, I know what our fan base is like. And there’s no better challenge for me than this.”

Now executive Vice President of the team, Newsome has taken a step back in terms of day-to-day roster construction. But he still remains heavily involved and continues to be a resource for DeCosta and the staff. Newsome could have sought out any person he felt was worthy of being his successor in Baltimore. But the fact that he chose DeCosta has shown to be a pretty effective move so far.

As an executive in sports and entertainment, how are you going about being a mentor in the building? Are you trying to help the masses or are you singling in on one person?

Today we’ll discuss that on The Breakdown: how to become a viable mentor in the sports and entertainment industry.

1/Mentoring vs. Coaching

As close as mentors and coaches can be in function, they do have slight differences. One significant difference is that mentors are often sought out or are more voluntary, whereas coaches are not always a person someone selected on their own.

While coaching is an effective method that can inspire subordinates to strive for more, evaluate one’s strengths and weaknesses, and disseminate that information to them in a constructive way, mentoring has other components that may allow you to connect with mentees in a more productive manner.

According to Mentoring Vs. Coaching webinar held by PushFar and Sheridan Resolutions, here are some of the benefits of mentoring over coaching:

• Unlike coaching, you do not need any certifications to be cleared to mentor.
• Mentoring can be considered more directive, as mentors share experience, skills, and knowledge with mentees.
• Mentoring is generally less formal than coaching but can be just as constructive.
• Mentoring is development based, mainly focusing on the mentee’s goals.
• While coaching can span varying times, mentor-mentee relationships often have more longevity.

The beauty of sports and entertainment is that mentors are almost unofficial titles. Your experience as an intern or working in the ticket office makes you more than qualified to direct someone who might be just entering the industry.

Jonathan Tillman, Senior Vice President of Team Marketing Business Operations with the NBA, shared a bit about the importance of finding the right mentor:

“When picking a place to start your career, always pick an opportunity that you have to work with people that you want to trust your career with,” said Tillman via TeamWork’s YouTube channel. “And I’ve been very fortunate, in my career, to work with a lot of great leaders, and hopefully, as you start your career, you find that spot or your find someone that will take your career in their hands and mold you into the professional you want to be moving forward.”

2/What Makes the Mentor?

Mentors can come in all shapes, sizes, experience levels, and genders. The part that makes mentors stand out is what skillsets they bring to the table. Here are some of the traits you can enlist to ensure you are being as impactful of a mentor as possible:

• Be an effective communicator. You can only connect with your mentees if you can keep a clear dialogue going. And this is not just about sharing your experiences with your mentee — listen to them as well. Getting to know who may be drawing on your knowledge can help you share that with them.
• Be empathetic. You have to be able to put yourself in others’ shoes. Do you remember when you were making your way up in the industry? Think of all the people who helped you get to this point. If you are hoping to be that for the next generation, you must be willing to extend that hand and understand those striving to advance themselves.
• Provide constructive thoughts. There is a fine line between construction and outright criticism, but you must keep in mind you should intend to give your mentee honest feedback. You want to build them up with instruction as best as possible without coming off as condescending.
• Help your mentee build their plan. As you once did as aspiring sports and entertainment staff, your mentee has some goals in mind in terms of their role within your organization and throughout their career overall.
• Give tools that apply to the role. You may be in the role that your mentee is seeking. There are always tools to a trade that can only be expounded on by those who have been in that position before. Being able to draw on your experience can help them gain valuable knowledge before they get into that seat.

You don’t have to be perfect, but you must show a vested interest in your mentee and the aspirations they have. One piece of advice is to really understand who the person is that you are mentoring. You can talk about business insights, contacts who are most helpful, and experiences you have from working for a professional sports teams. But it might be just as meaningful to your mentee if you ask them about family, why they got into sports and entertainment, and even their interests outside of the office.

Remember though, you want to make sure what you ask does not cross professional lines and that your mentee is comfortable engaging in that back and forth.

3/Weeding out the bad in Mentors

Now there are people out there who are more suited to be mentors than others. You can always improve on your skills as a mentor but there are other traits as a mentor that you may need to nix in order to help those around you.

• Don’t be selfish. As much as your mentee wants to know about your internship in a major league office, do not focus so much on your story that theirs gets lost.
• Stick to commitments. Mistakes happen in life and sometimes we can’t control factors that may be above our heads (ie: traffic jam due to an accident, missing work to attend a funeral service). But keeping your word and making time to work with your mentee is important. They understand you may have a lot of responsibilities, but you don’t want to be an unapproachable figure because you can’t make the time for subordinates.
• Listen up. One thing that may come off as rude is listening to what a mentee may be sharing only with the intention of responding with a retort. Be an active listener, someone who is listening to absorb information from the speaker and create dialogue from there, rather than being a reactive listener.
• Stop projecting perfection. This can seem very inauthentic and can provide unattainable expectations for your mentee. Tell them the stories where you had to overcome failure; that time you pulled tarp in the rain; when you stayed late making phone calls on deadline day; shifting your organization following the sale of your team. These stories of perseverance are more relatable than things always being “perfect.”
• Be aware of the language you use. One of the best sports anecdotes in recent years is Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams’ stance on critiquing his players: “I tell them all the time, if I get on you I’m not calling you out, I’m calling you up.” Use your words to call your mentees up, not just beating them down with harsh critiques.

Again, not everyone is meant to be a mentor. If you feel this way, be honest with your mentee and tell them your own thoughts. Maybe it’s not the right time for you to mentor or maybe your role as an Executive of Brand Partnerships does not align with that of your team’s Video Board Operator. Either way, taking note of the facets above can help you improve as a mentor, especially if you are looking to better yourself for once a new mentee comes your way.

4/Mentoring Programs

Teams and organizations have all gone about mentoring programs in different. For example, during the 2021 NFL season, the Buffalo Bills had an informal mentoring program in place for current staff to work with interns and to offset some of the work experience lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The mentors and mentees generally came from other departments of the franchise (ie: someone from the marketing team mentoring someone in the community relations department), as mentor meetings would take place bi-weekly.

Here are other examples of mentoring programs in sports and entertainment:

• Since late 2019, content creation company LiveWire Sport has had its Diversity in Digital Mentoring Program in place. It’s intended to focus on the support and growth of under-represented talent across the sports and entertainment, as well as digital media, fields. Two LiveWire team members are assigned to the mentees to help curate a plan specific to the mentee, as the hope for the program is to provide mentees with a viable network in the sports and digital spaces.
• The Women’s Sports Foundation and NBC Sports have connected to create a mentoring program for former collegiate athletes looking to transition into the workforce. The Student-Athlete Mentoring Program offers former student-athletes webinars focused on career development, network-building events, tips for personal branding, interviewing, communication skills, and more. Each mentee works with an NBC Sports employee that offers one-on-one career advice, insights into their work experience, and tools need to sift through working environments.
• Since Title IX’s 40th anniversary in 2012, ESPN and the U.S. Department of State have collaborated to create the Global Sports Mentoring Program. The program has three main sectors: 1) the Empowering Women and Girls through Sports program, 2) building ties between international and American non-elite youth athletes, coaches, and administrators, and 3) recruiting community-oriented professional athletes, to connect with communities in every corner of the world.

Are you fit to be a mentor?

As we’ve mentioned before, mentors come in all forms. The biggest thing is possessing the right mix of skills and personality traits to be able to uplift others who may be climbing the ladder.

Just take a listen to what Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee Director Of Corporate Partnerships Sara Arnold had to share about mentoring at a Women in Sports and Events (WISE) event. She served as Director of Partnership Activation for WISE’s Atlanta Chapter and was on both sides of the chapter’s mentoring program:

“I think, as you’re building your career, sometimes you’re a mentor and you don’t even realize it. I had an intern break her arm two weeks ago, she got hit by a foul ball at one of our youth clinics. She talked about how she was going to get a neon cast all week, and when she came into the office, she had a black cast. I said ‘I thought you were going to get a neon cast?’ and she said ‘yeah, but I think you would have gotten a black cast. … It’s these little things, and they look at you, and they emulate you, and you don’t even realize it. You have to be cognizant of how you’re presenting yourself, how you’re acting, what your actions are, even your attitude. And you’re mentors without even knowing sometimes and I think that’s just important to keep in the back of your head …[how] some of these younger girls [view you], especially in the front office,” said Arnold as she discussed from her tenure with the Atlanta Braves.

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