Pursuing A Career In Sport: Personal Statement

For my entire life, I have always enjoyed two activities- writing and playing sports. With a Sports Management major, plus a minor in Communication, I feel that I will be able to bring these two interest together in my professional life. My primary interest lies in the communication sector of the sports industry, whether it be blogging for a sports team or working on the set of a sports news network. I want to stay focused on communications and would exit the sports industry if a more appealing opportunity existed elsewhere.

     As we begin to grow up and come to the end of our high school career we must start to begin to start thinking about what type of career we want to be in.     It is very important that a person picks the right type of career for them. Otherwise you will be unhappy with what you are doing and will not enjoy it at all. I am not entirely sure what I want my career to be but I have a pretty good idea as to what type of job it will be. I would like to go into the field of a physical therapist and sports medicine, I fell I will enjoy this more than any other type of career just because I already have a lot of interest in it.

I believe my talent is time management, working hard, and helping others. Being a student-athlete I had to develop time managing early. When I made the girl's varsity basketball team my freshman year I realized just how time-consuming it was. There were days where I woke up at four in the morning to do homework and study for tests, after getting home from a game at nine pm. Learning to handle this full schedule challenged me as a student. It gave me the confidence to go take harder classes after freshman year. Sophomore year I took AP World History and three Honors classes. Junior year, I did so as well. But I’ve really pushed myself this year, because I am taking four AP classes: Environmental Science, Psychology, Calculus, and Government.

Some people think cheer is not a sport, to me it is my life. There is school cheer and competitive cheer, some prefer one over the other or they do both. School cheer is the yippie, go, go, go sideline chants. Competitive cheer is when a team of five or more create a two and half minute routine and compete against other teams on the same level. Both sports take huge dedication to the coaches and teammates.

I could be considered a hidden figure because I am a multi-faceted individual. I have a passion for learning and recalling information. For example, I have been the team captain for my Black History Quiz Bowl team which competes for 6-8 hours, Jeopardy style against other schools. I initiate contact with my school advisers and study groups outside of school hours. Other academic talents include continuous A-Honor Roll, scoring 5/5 in every subject for the state End of Grade testing. I was selected as the highest academic achiever in the 4th grade, thereby receiving honors and recognition at the UNC and Duke Football game as “All Star Achiever.” My next hidden talent surfaced as I attended an amazing summer camp at Clemson University. I built

For as long as I can remember, my profession of choice has been an occupation in the healthcare field. My dad often reminisces on when I was three when he would ask me “What’s your name?” I would reply with “Dr. Peppers.” Well sixteen years later my dream of being a doctor no longer exists, however my goal to become one of the best athletic trainers in the country is burning with passion. Growing up I wanted to be several different occupations like a trauma nurse, an obstetrician, or a physical therapist, before realizing after two years of high school sports medicine that athletic training was my niche. In coming to better comprehend athletic training as a career, my experiences in my classes and clinical here at Winthrop along with my high school experience in sports medicine has shaped my understanding of the athletic training world.

My clinical rotation for the fall semester of my junior year is with the King’s College Men’s soccer team. As an athletic training student, I hold a lot of responsibilities regarding the prevention, evaluation, diagnosis, management, and treatment of these student athletes. Most of my daily activities can be separated into three groups, the pre-practice, pre-game, during the activity, and post- practice and post-game.

Instead of feeling pressure to conform as a student at the University of Georgia, I have found that being in college has made me value the importance of a higher education more so than I ever had before. During high school, my primary goal was to play well enough to receive a football scholarship. At that time, my focus was not on academics. However, since I've arrived at the University of Georgia, my entire concept of the value of a college degree has slowly changed. Rather than seeing just football in my future, I can now picture myself as a football player with a college degree. Consequently, instead of having a negative impact on my personal growth, college has helped me broaden as a person.

Ever since I was a kid, I always enjoyed watching sports, especially with my father, but I also always watched in interest when someone got hurt and the medical crew had to go help. I’ve always really liked the idea of helping others with medical needs but was never sure what field might fit me the most. During seventh and eighth grade I had an ankle problem known as an os trigonum; it is essentially a bone in the ankle that didn’t fuse with the rest of the talus and can pop out causing a lot of pain. In the summer transitioning into high school, I had the bone surgically removed relieving the problems I had with it. Ever since that incident I taught myself how to tape my ankle during track season to help me, and that’s when I gained interest in the field of kinesiology and sports medicine.

Through my experience with sports, particularly volleyball, I always knew I wanted to work with athletes, like myself. My ideal post-graduate job would be an athletic trainer. The dream is to work at the training booths at sports tournaments and camps helping athletes with minor injuries. My decision to become an athletic trainer has stemmed from my desire to remain in the sports world long after my college volleyball career is has completed. I have always been strong in Science and Mathematics, I am so glad that I was able to finally pick a major based on my athlete’s schedule, career goals, and academic strengths. Along with athletic training, I want to be a coach. Not only do I want to be a coach, but a phenomenal coach; someone that

I am Samantha Ruelas. I am a person who enjoy playing sports. Like football, basketball, Taekwondo, and maybe even soccer. But what I really enjoy from all of those, is basketball. Basketball, made me who I am today. It has helped with my social skills with other people,and has made me a better teammate.

When the college application process started there weren't any schools that I was necessarily interested in. In my eyes no matter where I decided to attend, I would be getting an education but that mindset of mine quickly changed after visiting and learning more about Lasell. I knew immediately when I stepped on campus that this is where I needed to be for the next 4 years of my life.

While attending Michigan State University, I have enjoyed many opportunities to learn about kinesiology while developing an interest in sport management. Studying the history of American Sports and the structure of the sports industry has instilled in me a deep appreciation for sports and a desire to learn how a sport manager works in this fascinating system. Hence my desire for pursuing a master degree in your quality program of Sport Management. Once accepted, I wish to develop a solid background in the areas of leadership, management, marketing, law, economics, and finance through academic and hands-on experiences. In addition, I want to engage myself in sport industry internships and related research.

From high school, I have always shown an interest in sport and physical education and a career in the field of sport science was always a passion of mine. From studying Physical education at a GCSE level, that was when I genuinely took an interest in the theoretical and practical work. I have chosen to study sport science because as person that plays sport, I am very interested in perusing a career in the sport industry.

First off I just wanted to say thank you for taking your time to watch me play this club season. This year I will be a junior at Reservoir high school. We just finished up with high school tryouts last week and my approach jump now reaches 10 feet, which is really exciting for me. Freshman year I made JV even though it was my first time ever playing the sport. The varsity coach pulled me up that year for playoffs and at our end of the year banquet I was awarded with most improved. Last year I got the opportunity to hold most blocks in the county. This year my coach thinks I will be playing as an outside hitter instead of middle which is really exciting. Outside of volleyball I really enjoy making art unfortunately I won’t be able to take that