MediaTips: Eric Uribe, A Former Student Sports Journalist Going for an MBA, Honoring Victims of the Pulse Nightclub and Dreaming of the WWE
Eric Uribe graduated from the Reynolds School in May of 2015 and began his MBA at Central Florida University shortly after. Uribe talks about his transition to graduate school and how everything from being a prolific student sports journalist to an RSJ grad fits in his journey. Reporting and Interview by Sarah Parks for the Reynolds Sandbox.
Q: What are you currently doing right now?
Uribe: Currently I go to the University of Central Florida. I’m a part of the Business Management Program, and I am getting an MBA in Sports Business Management. Right now, I have a graduate assistantship at a nonprofit called National Consortium for Academics and Sports, which is cool because (former University of Nevada, Reno, President) Joe Crowley is actually the chairman of the board. I (also) work for a guy who used to play for the football team in Reno, so there is definitely some Reno connections there. But it is pretty much a nonprofit that hosts domestic violence workshops for sports organizations. The whole platform of the organization is to use sports for social change.
Above, from the Sagebrush archives, one of the many articles Uribe wrote during his time at the school newspaper.
Q: You also covered the business side of sports at the Sagebrush and for the (web video show) The Brush Up while at the University of Nevada, Reno. What did you learn as a student journalist?
Uribe: That’s kind of what really started me, I was a sport editor for two and a half years at the Sagebrush, but my favorite thing to report on was by far, the business side of sports, specifically in Nevada athletics- how they are raising money and how they are trying to build new facilities. Covering that for almost three years just fascinated me so much that I wanted to do it myself here with this program.
Honestly, the work I did for the Sagebrush is what made my collegiate career- it was just invaluable. In my classes I did learn a lot, I was writing maybe three or four stories a semester, but as a sports editor of the Sagebrush, I was in charge of five pages of the whole paper, working with a staff of volunteers, editing their work, pitching ideas for my stories, just reporting weekly, I was writing like four or five stories it felt like. So personally, I learned by just doing the work, and I think for journalists, that is how you really learn, by getting out and recording and interviewing people. So those lessons were invaluable for me, and it was really fun at the Sagebrush because I had a lot of creative freedom. I also had some internships at the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Reno Gazette Journal, but at the Sagebrush, I was in charge of everything and could pretty much do anything I wanted. If you go back and read stories I did, I would joke around a lot, and always throw in Kanye references or wrestling references, so it was fun, but I also had an awesome staff that I worked with at the Sagebrush, photographers and editors that really pushed my boundaries.
Q: How is the business side of sports different than regular sports reporting?
Uribe: The competition goes on year-round on the business side, where in football it is just a season. On the business side it is 24/7, 365 days a year. For Nevada athletics, they were really cash-strapped in comparison to their competitors such as Boise State and San Jose State, so they had an uphill climb to be competitive on the playing field because they didn’t have as much money to hire really good coaches and build as good facilities. Everything about the business side of sports just fascinates me, whether it’s marketing or social media, it’s so multi-dimensional and I guess that is what makes it so much different than the actual competition on the field and court.
Above another one of Uribe’s articles from the Sagebrush archives.
Q: What did you like or not like about sports journalism at the college level?
Uribe: I covered so much, football, basketball, volleyball, anything. There’s a lot of coach speech and a lot of layers you have to go through at the collegiate level, like to request any interview with any student athlete, you have to go through the Sports Information Directors in the Athletic Department, so there is a lot of tape you have to go through, and even when you do get to talk to the coaches and the athletes, there are a lot of cliche things they say, especially the coaches. They are trying not to give away too much information. While I was there, they had a coach in charge of the football team who wouldn’t even let you go to practices, so sports on a college level are just so heavily guarded. But in a way, they have to be, student athletes are kids too, but it really just slows everything down and I’m not the most patient guy.
Q: Your favorite project?
Uribe: Starting the Brush Up, I loved that. It started with me, Leo Beas, and a guy named Chris Boline around 2014. It was supposed to be video, but the big thing then with ESPN was argument-based shows. And that was we set out to do as our first show, and I think our first show we argued over whether Colin Kaepernick was an elite quarterback, which is funny how much that conversation changed in three years. And this grew into a standalone show, with more people being brought in and (evolving over the years.)
Q: How has the transition from undergrad to grad school been?
Uribe: I took a year off to work full-time before I started the MBA program. For me, it has been kind of a steep learning curve. MBA is a lot different than journalism work, some of the finance classes and stats classes have been an uphill climb, but nonetheless, I am still carrying a ton of those skills that I learned in the J-School, writing and interpersonal communication skills, those go far in grad school and in the sports business world. Currently for my program I run our social media, so I am in charge of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I think our content is so much better than other sports business management programs, and I am just doing all the things that I was doing at the Sagebrush and at the J-School, just trying to engage people to follow us.
Q: What are your plans going forward after you have completed your MBA?
Uribe: Dream job is to work for World Wrestling Entertainment, which always throws people off, because people have a negative connotation of wrestling. Really, at its core, the thing I love about WWE is the storytelling and the innovation. There’s a lot of crossover between that, what I have learned at the J-School, and my personality. Wrestling, they have put on 5 hours of TV each week for 23 years straight, they have no breaks and I think it is the longest running primetime TV show. It is part acting and part athleticism, and I think that is the perfect blend of storytelling. Also on the business side, WWE is so innovative with what they are doing on their social media platforms, the level of engagement they have. They launched a couple of years ago a subscription service, kind of like Netflix for WWE, called WWE Network, and it is super ahead of its time.
Q: Do you have any advice for current journalism students thinking of following the same path?
Uribe: First, you really have to learn a lot about the industry and become a lifelong learner. You also have to be at the pulse of media, because it is changing so much. If you don’t know what the next technology or trend is, you are going to be left behind pretty quick. So, you have to stay on top of everything. Just read daily, whether it be a newspaper or magazine or reporter’s Twitter feed, just constantly be seeking out news.
Pick the Brains of Industry Leaders
Also, you need to realize as a student that you can really reach out to a lot of industry leaders and just pick their brains. Use your “student” card to set up, whether it be an in-person meeting over coffee or just a phone call. What I have learned is that most people want to help you out if you reach out to them. They’ll take a few minutes out of their day to help you, and if they don’t, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Just not reply? So really pull out that student card.
Work Outside the Classroom
It goes without saying that you should do work outside the classroom, whether that be joining the Sagebrush or PRSSA or internships. That is experience that you need right away.
Visit Professors
Also, I don’t think a lot of people realize this, but visit professors during their office hours. I had a professor named Ben Holden, and he was a former lawyer and Wall Street Journal reporter and I used to just sit in his office and he would critique my sports section word by word. Those lessons he taught me were, I can’t begin to explain how much he taught me- from cold calling, which I was super scared to do, he got me over the fear of that. I still remember his lesson to me about cussing in my articles, how that cheapened my voice and my brand, and that is still stuff that I think about daily when I post on Twitter or write something for school. Just use those resources beyond the classroom.
Q: Anything else that you learned at the J-School that you would like to share?
Uribe: I think a valuable thing that I learned at the J-school that I am going to be applying is- for my business program we are hosting a big run in early June to honor the Pulse nightclub shootings that happened here in Orlando last year. It is going to be a 4.9K because there are 49 victims. Me being the social media guy, I am doing a lot of promotions for it, really putting into practice what I learned in the J-school about running paid ads and doing human interest stories to get people’s attention. I think it’s going to be huge to the success of this event. And there was even a PR crisis that we had to handle a couple days ago. Our school is named for Richard DeVos, the father in law to Betsy DeVos who has come under criticism for a lot of things but particularly her views on LGBTQ issues. On our Facebook page, someone commented on this issue and asked about support for the LGBTQ community and we were fast on our response. Within a couple hours we had a response ready to go so that this wouldn’t snowball into something worse. These were all things that I learned in my strat com class. In class, I didn’t think a lot of the things we were learning would ever apply, but I was dead wrong.
