Job & Internship

May Internship Spotlight

Name: Ben Schlesselman
Major: Jl MC
Emphasis: Public Relations
Company: Athletes in Action – Alaska Baseball League

Most Memorable Experience: The culmination of hard work of going on four years in the Iowa State Athletics Communications/Media Relations department really paid off. The sense of accomplishment was really there. The Alaska Baseball League has seen Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jeff Kent, Mike Pelfrey and dozens more pass through as they rise to professional stardom. I have been able to parlay this experience in one of the most prestigious summer leagues in American other than the Cape Cod League, into a full-year internship with the University of Florida Athletics Association in Gainesville.

Our team consisted of several players from Div. I schools like Arizona State, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Western Carolina and Charleston Southern but many of the other teams in the league were stacked with players from Pepperdine, Stanford, Rice, Washington State, Lewis-Clark, all perennial powerhouses in their respective league. Most players were freshmen or sophomores in college who were drafted professionally but in the later rounds so they were trying to improve their draft status and prepare for the upcoming season.

The mosquitoes are as bad as advertised and it gets dark in the summer for only about 30 minutes a day. It was so hard departing the San Jose Airport after getting to know the guys on a personal level. We all headed back to our respective terminals, with most of us never getting to see each other again.

Special Contribution: I served as the sports information director for the AIA Fire with its home field at Growden Memorial Stadium in Fairbanks, Alaska. Through this position, I was responsible for writing game recaps, previews, feature stories as well as keeping live stats via StatCrew, serving as the color commentary on the Teamline Radio Network and running down between innings to act as a photographer. Needless to say, it was a lot to handle, especially when we shuffled eight hours on a bus back and forth from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

The six-team league played a lot of its games at night, so deadlines to the Anchorage Daily-News Miner and other Alaskan media were vital. However, Alaska does not have a lot of athletic action that goes on so every article I sent them was published on the front or second page.

Many of our players came from smaller schools with a different background and as an icebreaker I had them strike poses on the first day of practice to create personalized desktop wallpapers for them. I quickly earned their respect because they were begging for their wallpaper to be next as well as the respect of my boss, Chris Beck, the national director of teams for AIA and a former pitcher for the Seattle Mariners and the Chicago Cubs in the mid-90's.

I also formed a close rapport with our manager, Phil Plantier, who was an All-Star while with the San Diego Padres and has played alongside Tony Gwynn, Fred McGriff, Bip Roberts and many others. My well-rounded knowledge enabled him to feel comfortable going into games asking me for advice about matchups, how to set the pitching rotation, how effective has the opposing starter been in the league so far, etc.

I really had to be adaptive and innovative on the fly though. Wireless internet is scarce throughout Alaska and desperate times call for desperate measures. The team was stayed in the back room of a bingo casino and I had to walk about a mile away in inclement weather to sit in the lobby of a motel and acquire a wireless signal in order to submit a story on time. The experience was forever memorable and AIA requested that I come back this summer to Alaska but I had another opportunity lined up. I wouldn't trade this experience for any other that I've been through.

Advice to Future Interns: It's important to get involved early. I started out as an apparel merchandising major because I was interested in the business aspect of it but I quickly learned it wasn't the right career because sports was my passion.

Now I'll be headed to Gainesville at the beginning of July to begin a stint with the most prestigious athletics school as the Gators won back-to-back NCAA basketball titles and the BCS Championship in football. I will be the primary contact for men's and women's golf and men's and women's swimming and diving as well as assisting with men's and women's basketball and becoming a part of gameday at infamous Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

If you're interested in the sports information career, it's all about networking. You need to branch out, get to know people from various other media outlets, strike up a conversation with an NFL scout in the pressbox and inquire about future internships. Show interest in what they had to do to get where they were now. It might not be the most glamorous job in the world but to love what you do matters more in the long run.

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