Trevor Turnbull: Hey everyone its Trevor Turnbull here with SportsNetworker.com and I’m joined via Skype right now by Matt Crevin. How’s it going Matt?

Matt Crevin: It’s going great Trevor. Nice to be with you today.

Good stuff. Matt is the founder of Voice of the Box. Some of you might actually recognize his face, you might have seen some of his videos. He does some great interviews, some really insightful behind-the-scenes interviews with successful sports business professionals, talking to them about their roles and how they’ve paved their path in the industry and helping others do the same thing. Matt I want to talk to you about a few things here today. Number one I want our audience to get to know who you are better but also you have a book coming out. We’ll definitely talk about that here in a second too.

Let’s first of all start out with how did you get into the sports industry. What’s your story?

Yeah thanks Trevor, I appreciate it.

Mine is a very interesting story but also similar to a lot of others. I started out literally out of college in 1991 as an unpaid public relations intern within the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers. Good luck, good timing, interesting people, personality skills that I brought to the table and that was really how I broke it. I was, again, an unpaid intern with the 49ers. I couldn’t have been any more excited because the Niners were, at that point, two years removed from a Super Bowl championship, it was still a who’s who of an NFL roster on that squad. To be put in that scenario and to be able to work with the players as a community relations specialist and working with media relations on gameday and everything in between was absolutely fascinating. I was literally, that’s just cliche, living the dream right out of college. That was my break in and it was something that I’ll never forget. My first year with the Niners was Joe Montana’s last year with the Niners. I just came back from a speaking tour and I was just telling the audience that I would have never thought as a seventh grader in 1981 sitting on my parents’ couch in a small town outside of San Francisco while watching Montana Magic evolve that a quick nine years later I would be in the same locker room as him.

So you never know what’s going to happen but that’s how I broke in, with the NFL in a public relations capacity, and just started shaking hands and meeting people not only in the NFL but in other areas of sports. Everyone was converging in at the Niners at that time; media, sports apparel, sports nutrition and science; I started making these connections and at that point gathering business cards and building my pre-LinkedIn gathering of connections. That’s how it all started for me.

So it really has been, as you say, a dream job to be working in the sports industry and a passion of yours. How has that evolved over time now? I know, like you mentioned, this is pre-LinkedIn those days right?

Yeah it gives me a little gut check to say that but it’s true. Al Gore had not invented the Internet yet so I was going out and making those handshakes and gathering cards. Then I worked there full-time for a year, which was fantastic. I was actually getting paid for what I wanted to do.

Then how it evolved, to answer your question Trevor, was literally in 1993 the Niners came to me and said good news/bad news. The good news is you’ve done a great job with us, you’re gaining good traction, you’re working well with everyone – unfortunately the boss’s daughter and there’s going to be a couple head count that are going to be removed, unfortunately you’re one of them. However, we want to keep you as part of our gameday staff and I said fantastic.

Great, it was kind of a catch 22. It was the boss’s daughter; it’s the old scenario. There I was, I was old school mailing out resumes, cover letters coast-to-coast. I had recommendations from the team president to my boss and everyone in-between. Nothing popped. I was at the point where I didn’t have the resource to extend my career search at that point just based on my age. I just didn’t have the wallet, if you will.

It was interesting because I learned how to go through a successful career search. Keep that in mind because that’s kind of what I’m doing now. When I went through that first career search process I went through a lot of how to position yourself as an individual and as a brand, if you will. It really taught me a lot of lessons at a very young age.

So again the Niners offered me to stay on part-time, which was great. My hand or my feet were still involved in the NFL and I’m proud to say I’ve been with the 49ers now for 19 years. Now I’ve also had another career because I’ve had to launch my own career and I got into corporate relations, I got into sales, business developments and I’ve been really lucky to represent and to work with such companies as Microsoft and FedEx over the past 19 years. Which has been wonderful for me, not for the sake of hey I’ve worked at these companies, but what it’s taught me. Who I’ve met, what I’ve learned from them along the way.

About three years ago my two careers kind of intersected. I know this is a really long answer but it gives kind of a backdrop of how I got started and how I continue to follow my passion. About three years ago I asked permission from the 49ers that I want to bring my HandiCam and I want to bring it to the sidelines and I want to start interviewing people that have jobs like me. Kind of behind-the-scenes in the NFL. They said go ahead, stay out of the way. I said OK, I’ll do that. I started interviewing radio and TV announcers, radio and TV producers, the chain gang, the ball boys, the equipment crew, the grounds crew. Everyone that kind of had behind-the-curtain roles in the NFL. I started asking them how did you get your job, what does it take to be good at your job? Then a series of lightbulbs went off and to short story this for you I said I need to replicate this model out of all of the connections that I’ve made, not just football. The four major sports of course, but them amateur sports, university-level sports, and then all of the private enterprise that’s out there. Sports marketing, sports apparel, sports nutrition and science, on and on and on. Everywhere I was traveling with my corporate job I was getting interviews, bringing content, made a free Web site, Voice of the Box, that’s how it started.

Then the last lightbulb went off; I was getting more and more feedback and people say, “I love that interview that you did with that woman from Gatorade. I want to do something like that, how can you help me.” I said wow, someone is asking me for help. I thought about it and I resigned my role from FedEx right there and then on the spot, built me coaching model out and said this is the perfect marriage. I know there’s no such thing but this is the perfect marriage. Now I’ve got the qualifications. I’ve got 18 years of real-world relevant, fresh and unique ideas and content and I can match that with me 19 years of sports industry connections, experience and knowledge and I can become a career coach and help the next generation to put a plan in place on how to break in. That was a long answer, but that’s how Voice of the Box started.

No it’s great, it’s very complete. As you mentioned you have the real world experience of actually having gone through and done all of these roles with the San Francisco 49ers but then you’ve also kind of taken a page out of our book in the same way that we produce our content in going out and interviewing people that have done a number of different roles and learning from them. Instead of trying to assume what it’s like to be a ticket sales manager for a sports team you go out and you talk to somebody about it. It really helps establish that credibility and expertise in a certain area.

So with Voice of the Box then, and this is slowly evolving towards the point where I wanted to talk to you about the book because you have all of this experience and you’ve done all of these interviews. Tell us about this book and what the inspiration was behind it. You kind of already eluded to that but how did the whole thing kind of evolve? Did you write it over the last five years or is this something that you’ve put together in the last few months?

Yeah great question Trevor. It was a little germ of an idea and it got shelved but really the more I kept going out, and I don’t know if I mentioned but, I do a lot of guest lectures at university campuses across the US. It’s a tremendous amount of fun and I deliver a lot of content to these students.

It just made sense – from all of the people that I’ve met in the sports industry and matching that with, again, the corporate knowledge that I have on how to successfully launch a career search, because it is a very detailed process, but it really can be managed in a very simplified four-step way. I said I want to document this and so that was the idea and as much as I was traveling at that point, I was bringing my laptop and I was hammering away on these flights, wrote the outline. I literally stared this about 18 months ago, so it wasn’t five years ago to your thought although it probably seems like it in my brain, but it’s been a whirlwind 18 months but I wanted to do it and I wanted to do it the right way and not just haphazardly put a book out just for the sake of putting a book out.

This book is just my way, I know it sounds all high and mighty, it’s a way of giving back, but it’s a way of sharing the knowledge that I wish that I had when I was in these kid’s, meaning the college students of today, spot. Now they’ve got someone like me. I’m not the only resource for people, I’m a very good resource for people but I’m not the only one. So I really help and I work with career services and I work with faculty directly. This book was a culmination of bringing everything together and putting it out there for the next generation of sports industry hopefuls. My thought was, going into this, if someone can take one idea out of my book, that to me is success. Hopefully more than one good idea, but if they can take at least one that was the idea behind the book. Get in the Game is now out and we’re getting ready and we’re really closed to having it launch. It’s pretty exciting.

Nice. And, as we were discussing before we hopped on this call, it’s one of our mandates to try and provide the best content possible to help out our audience. After seeing all of the videos that you’ve done, and many of them that we’ve actually posted on our site, I have no doubt it’s going to be great content. I’m looking forward to reading this book.

For everybody that’s watching this video stay tuned because we’ll definitely let you know about how you can get a copy of this book. We might even run some contests, we might even have a portion of time where this book is available for free. Stay tuned on that, take a look on the page somewhere here, you might see something that eludes to that fact.

Matt let me leave it with this here. There’s obviously a lot of tips in your book and numerous things that we could talk about for hours here but if you were to pull out one nugget, one piece of advice that you would give people that might be that spark that starts them down the path what would you say that one tip would be?

Wow. Trevor can you give me anymore of a loaded question.

Maybe don’t give me the best one. Let’s save the best ones for the book, let people read the book. How about let’s talk about one tip that you would give.

Yeah, I’m just teasing you. It’s a legitimate question.

You’re right there are so many tips and it’s a matter of what works within someones personal DNA, if you will. Not to make it scientific. To that tone the sports industry, with all due respect to those that do work in science labs, this is not splitting atoms here. The sports industry is a people business. I’ve been in it for 19 years, that is a skill, being authentic. You hear that phrase but being yourself. I see so many people trying to hard during and informational interview process or a traditional interview process to be so scripted and so rehearsed and so robotic that they’re losing sight of the question this person is really asking. Be yourself, relax, take a big deep breath. Don’t think so hard about the absolute perfect answer to the question. Answer the question from your gut, even if you don’t think it’s going to hit they’ll see that you’re real. That’s what people want – people want to be around people that are authentic and real.

The other thing I can kind of leave with, if you will, and there’s obviously a lot more in the book as you mentioned is communication. I go into detail about easy and simplified ways to communicate with people. We live in such a technical space right now that everyone is kind of hiding behind their keyboard but you know what you have to be solid when you’re face-to-face. I go into detail about the four simple steps of a kind of guidelines and rules to go by because the art of communication is a lost art. That will be the last thing that I share with you know as a little bit of a nugget. What are some four easy steps to keep in mind as you go out and meet people, in informational meetings or traditional interviews, to kind of have in mind. The four Cs of communication is another little thing that I get into.

Nice. That’s something to look forward too everybody if you go check out this book. Part of the challenge in landing that job is getting your foot in the door but then once you do what do you actually going to say, how do you present yourself. 

That’s the key.

There you go. I’m really looking forward to this Matt, we’ll obviously be keeping in touch here and talk about how we can help you with the launch and get this book into the hands of our audience as well.

In the meantime let people know how they can connect with you online. LinkedIn, Twitter, that type of thing.

Yeah, I’ll list it all out.

First of all the Web site is the best spot because all of my connections are there in terms of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The Web site, one more time, it’s all one word but I’ll say it slowly: Voice of the Box.

Just so you know, maybe out of curiosity, some people are saying what is Voice of the Box, what’s that all about? It’s kind of a little play on words. The last 13 of the 19 years that I’ve been associated with the 49ers I do the public address announcing. I’m just kind of a faceless, nameless guy but I’m up in the press box. I’m the voice, hence voice of the box. Kind of a little cheeky name.

If you go to voiceofthebox.co, that’s not a misspelling and I’m not mispronouncing it, voiceofthebox.co. You’ll get to my Web site, you can follow me on Twitter, my Facebook page is there, LinkedIn is there, everything is there. I think that’s the best place to go to get all of my information and connect with me. I’ve got a tab on the page about the book, I’ve got a tab on the page about my radio program, everything is there, voiceofthebox.co.

Perfect. We’ll link all of that up so that everyone watching this video can find Matt and follow him easily. Matt thanks very much for doing this and as I said we’ll be in touch here and we’ll look for ways that we can help you get this into the hands of our audience and best of luck as this book launches. I’m sure it will be great.

Yeah I appreciate it Trevor. It’s been great talking with you. Appreciate the help.

Alright, thanks a lot.

Kelly: Joined by Matthew DeBritz of ESPN.  First of all Matthew, thank you for taking the time, and let’s start off by give us a little bit about your back-story.

Matt: I worked at ESPN 11 ½ years, got the job right out of college, not right out of college but maybe six months later, took a long process to get in, so I graduated in May and started in October of 2000 and been there since then and worked in the international division, been working my way up, and that’s pretty much my story so far.

Did you always know you wanted to go into sports?

Matt: Yeah, I had an idea.  I think as kids growing up that you want to play professional and as you get older realize that’s probably not going to happen, so the closest thing I could get to it was be working on it, so I took radio and television in college and also took a sports studies minor, and I thought that was the best way, and I really got interested about that stuff there, more interested, and I said yeah, I want to work in sports.

Kelly: Who would you say as influenced you most along the way?  Do you have mentors or people that have helped you out or got you connected with ESPN?

Matt: There was a couple people that are a little older and I don’t want to embarrass them, so I won’t say their names, but when you start working in an environment as big as ESPN, there’s so many people, so many different ways people look at things, you find a couple of people that you latch onto and kind of align with, because you’ll go to battle with them in any sort of production, because you’ve seen what they can do, and those are the people you want to align yourself up with, people you can see yourself being like in a lot of ways and having similar interests and similar work ethic.

Kelly: And you’ve worn a lot of hats for ESPN and worked your way up, if maybe you want to start at the beginning when you first got there and working as a production assistant and just how you have worked your way up the ranks there?

Matt: Well I got in there in the international division which I wasn’t expecting to do that.  I met someone at a job fair when I was ending college, actually I was in an elevator with the people, and I didn’t know it at the time.  They wanted to know if I was a vendor or actually looking for a job, and I said no, I’m actually looking for a job, so I went over to their table and realized when they dropped the banner, it said ESPN International, but at the time, I had no idea what that meant.  I had seen ESPN, but the line for them was around the corner, so I said I’ll go talk to international, and since I had some Spanish skills in my background, they wanted to talk to me, so I got one person’s card and pretty much bothered her for the whole summer and eventually people called me and I got the interview there and got the job.  It was pretty fast moving.  I had the interview and then they wanted me to start soon, and I said yes of course, and I got there, and I was working soccer division, international soccer, and it’s not like it is now where every game is on TV.  Ten, twelve years ago, the games weren’t on as much.  There was the World Cup and there was a game on that you really had to pay for if you were a soccer fan, so not a lot of us in this country grew up watching soccer.  I did and I played it, so it helped me a little bit, and with the Spanish skills that was the angle they hired me for.  To kind of get more acclimated I actually played PlayStation all the time and played it in two different languages to understand the guys names so that when I saw them again, I would understand them.  When I first got there, I was just logging games, and it’s kind of a great way to just know players that you don’t know and tactics you’d never see before, so I started doing that and once they were okay with me doing that, I started cutting highlights for games and then eventually I started assistant directing for games and then got a shot at producing/directing games, and from there, other sports opened.  You just have to willing to work on different sports at different times.

Kelly: Is there a particular aspect that you like best or a particular sport?

Matt: Yeah, I’m a basketball fan through and through.  College basketball—I grew up in Syracuse, NY and that’s where college basketball is huge—it’s like a pro team there.  Probably six or seven years into my career, they asked me to start working on NCAA basketball, and I said absolutely I would, because that doesn’t feel like work too much because you just sit there and a lot of the things you know about the history of the game and the players in the game, I already knew them.  I didn’t have to be looking up stats or looking up on the computer.  I could know that something was right or something was wrong without searching or researching, and that’s a huge advantage, so your question before, ‘did I want to work in sports.’  I guess I did when I was younger, probably before everyone took classes, being a fan.

Kelly: There’s this perception, ESPN’s reputation speaks for itself, and what is it like being on the inside of things because you have the perception from the outside and as a viewer and actually working there, what is it like?

Matt: It’s good.  You go in and you’re working on sports, so it’s hard to say to anybody that my job’s not fun, because we’re working on sports, and at the end of the day you have to look at it from that perspective, and you’re working on sports by watching it, and you’re getting paid to watch sports essentially.  There’s a little more things than that- you still have to put your work and time in, but it’s a pretty crazy environment at times.  You’re walking down the hall and you see the ‘Rock’ or a mascot…you will see those things at times where you’re walking by and you’ll see Magic Johnson.  I remember passing him in the hallway or Mike Ditka or Michael Irvin, all these guys that you grew up watching.  Then you see them in person and you realize they’re more like normal people like we are.

Kelly: Is there a particular moment or aha moment for you where you went I can’t believe I’m doing this?

Matt: I work in the international division, so celebrities I would know in my division are a little different.  I’ll tell this story anyway.  There’s this guy that works in international, his name is Mario Kempes and he’s an Argentine soccer player who scored in the World Cup, but if it wasn’t for Diego Maradona, we wouldn’t be talking about him all the time.  He’s in the same breath as Maradona and Pele.  He’s the most laid back kind of guy and you would never know that, but when I went to Istanbul, Turkey for the championship final in ’05, and all the English fans found out who he was, it was like a swarm of people around him, just everyone crowding him and asking him for autographs and stuff, and to me, he’s just my colleague but outside the world he’s huge.

Kelly: You have a Twitter account, and it’s not affiliated with ESPN, but if you could touch on your perceptions of social media and the role they play in the sports landscape, especially there’s people at ESPN—on-air personalities have Twitter accounts, and a lot of the producers and different people there also have Twitter accounts.

Matt: It’s just the way we’re going.  Whole shows are being predicated on Twitter and Facebook now.  I don’t know if you watch that show NFL 32, but it’s very interactive, same with SportsNation.  It’s just crazy because it’s like another newswire, so news people also have to be searching peoples twitter accounts on top of searching for news and also in some ways, it cuts out the middle man for athletes.  Tiger Woods for example—he doesn’t want to hold a press conference, he just wants to be on Twitter, and so it’s changed everything.  People are on Facebook and Twitter.  I have a Twitter account, mostly for me to just read it.  I might tweet stuff every once in a while but I try to stay away from that, because I don’t want someone holding it against me later.

Kelly: You mentioned Tiger Woods and how with athletes it’s their voice now.  Has it made your job more challenging as a producer—athletes not wanting to directly talk to the media?

Matt: I’d say no, because they’re still going to be on camera, because they want that exposure on camera.  Twitter is good—the other night Amare Stoudemire broke the fire extinguisher, he apologized to the fans, but he still has to make a statement.  It gives us a little more instant gratification, but they’re all going to still do stuff.  Who knows they might start doing their press conferences like we’re doing our talk right now, so hey, if that’s what they’re going to do, we’re going to find it.  Anything that’s on the Internet is found by our people, for example when Stan Van Gundy kind of said he was going to be fired, and Dwight Howard walked in on him, that was on OrlandoMagic.com and as long as they clear us to use it, we can use it.  There’s no hiding is what I’m trying to say.  We’ll always get the guys on camera and get them to talk.

Kelly: You mentioned earlier how much the sports landscape has changed over the last ten years or so.  Do you feel like as a student now coming out of college who wants to go into sports, you have to be in tune with the social media side of things and know how to do that all?

Matt: Absolutely, I think you have to evolve with what’s going on in social media.  It’s how people talk now.  You walk down the street and people aren’t talking, they’re texting, they’re on their phone, they’re on their IPad, they’re on their computer.  Even this conversation ten years ago would have been a little more difficult but in five more years, it could be a whole different game again, so you just have to be able to roll with it.  Social media is what rules us right now.

Kelly: Going back to all the different positions you’ve had at ESPN, is there a particular aspect that you enjoy most about your job?

Matt: It may sound kind of strange but it’s that you can walk in and at any moment it could change in an instant, but I’ve only worked in TV.  It’s every day that you don’t know what’s coming and may be frustrating for some people but it’s also the fun part where you decide, you’re having troubles but I’m going to make this show great.  I just found out that this story broke as we got to air or something like that.  The thinking on your feet like that is probably the most fun part.

Kelly: Earlier you talked about knowing Spanish and playing the PlayStation to familiarize yourself with different guys names, what are skills you’ve found the most valuable with all the different positions you’ve had (since you’ve moved around so much)?

Matt: The biggest skill is you have to be flexible.  What I mean by that, you have to be deciding that you want to work on a sport and if someone asks you to work on a different sport, you have to kind of say yes.  The power of yes…one time in my career and I was talking about soccer.  I had traveled in Turkey the year before and it was a really cool event, and the next year the same event was going to be in Paris and I really wanted to go to that.  I was told you’re not going to that; you’re going to travel on Indy Car.  At the time, I had this reaction, I don’t want to work on Indy Car, I don’t know anything about it, I’m not a gear head, I’m not into motor sports, nothing, but I did do it, and good thing.  It was a really good experience for me.  I was a field producer there, I was the A.D. (assistant director), I was coordinating with the whole freelance crew, I pretty much ran it, and if I had gone to that event in Paris, one of my colleagues would have done that, and also I made some great contacts and friends for life, just because I was on that circuit for two or three years, so being flexible is number one.   You think you may be this one person and working on this one show, and then you could change shows at any instant and make an impact there and make an impact later in your career.  It’s come full circle sometimes.  Working on Indy Car helped me work on SportsCenter because not that many people knew that much about Indy Car, because there were a lot of foreign guys on the Indy Car circuit that they didn’t know about, but I knew them because I was on the circuit.  You never can tell I guess is the point.  It’s cliché but you have to be a hard worker, and you have to be passionate.  A lot of these guys on the SportNetworker talk about being passionate, and that’s true because if you’re not passionate, people can tell pretty quickly you don’t want to be there, and you don’t want that.  You want people to be like, ‘I want to work with that person’ because they’re passionate and no matter what they do, they’re working hard at it.

Kelly: I bet when you started you probably never would have guessed you’d be working on Indy Car and international soccer and all this stuff.

Matt: No, I haven’t.  You don’t know and that’s why all skills you may find, or work on or shows, can lead you to something later on.  You just have to be open to it

Kelly: I know it’s hard to forecast the future, ten years from now, do you have ideas of where you would like to go at ESPN or what you would like to evolve into there with the network

Matt: No, I don’t honestly and that kind of goes along with what I was saying before how things change so fast.  There could be a day where someone approaches me and says I want you to work in programming, which may not be my cup of tea.  Working at a desk is a little different than what I’m doing but there might be a time, where I want to get out of that game, because you work nights, you work weekends.  You have a crazy schedule sometime, so there might be a time where I want that.  As of right now, I’m fine with what I’m doing.  I still like production, I still like being in the mix, still like traveling.  I know that’s a question everyone asks me, but I really don’t have that answer right now.

Kelly: You kind of touched on it a couple questions ago, being flexible, but what advice would you give to sports business students out there who are looking to land their dream job in sports?

Matt: One way you can focus on what you really want to do is you work in a job that you don’t like or an internship.  Before I started working at ESPN, I had a six or eight month time where I wasn’t really working, and I was doing whatever and I got so frustrated, I drove to Washington D.C. and moved in with my brother.  I said maybe if I’m here and there’s a job opening I can get it faster than if I’m calling from upstate New York, because they can say come in for the interview, and I can get it.  So I did, and I was broke, and I knew someone from one of my classes, who was working there, and they hadn’t told me what they were doing but they said they had an opening.  I went down there and it was acupuncture and Chinese medicine certification place, so it was mostly data entry, but they paid well, and I was broke, and I didn’t know what else to do.  At that time, I wasn’t sure if I still wanted to make an effort to be in broadcast or TV or anything, so I said I’ll do this, maybe I’m not one of those people that really care about my job.  I’ll tell you what—after two weeks of doing that, I was like I hate this, I can’t do this, and luckily ESPN had called me and I pretty much told those people that Friday I’m out of here.  They didn’t care—they kind of knew that when I came in.  So, it’s always good to take an internship or a job even if you don’t think it’s really what you want to do, because it may focus you to do whatever it is you’re supposed to do.  I did a semester…went to Ithaca College, but did a semester at American University in D.C. There was a really cool course load.  All we did is go and talk to different journalists, and then I had an internship at a radio station.  And it was okay, but I could tell pretty soon that’s really not what I wanted to do because I was like the intern on the morning show at 5 AM one day and I was a promotions person the rest of the time, and it wasn’t my speed.  That’s why I say it’s important to try it because you may not know if it’s for you or not, and some people come into the sports production business and they don’t get it or like it and want to get out, and that’s fine.  All those things you can do beforehand and try and be in it, and you can work in it for a while and not want to be in it anymore.  That’s my best advice for that is to always try those things and talk to nice people in your school or anyone that you know is offering some sort- a journalist is going to be on campus or be nearby—you should go to those events and listen to them talk, and listen to what they have to say because they’ve probably been in the business a while and can, hate to say it, probably tell you better than some of your professors could.  Some of my professors at Ithaca did work in the business a long time, and that was valuable to me because they had a little different perspective than people who were just professors.

Kelly: I can definitely relate to that a little bit.  I went to Arizona State and I definitely had classes that were extremely valuable but definitely had other ones that…I honestly probably learned the most at my internships for practical stuff I’m using now.

Matt: The school I ended up had a TV station, most schools have something.  You got to get involved in those.  It will give you a nice dose of what it’s like.  I remember doing Saturday mornings and getting up at nine.  In college, getting up at nine in the morning on a Saturday was pretty tough, but I did it.  You do stuff like that, and you get an idea of what it’s really like with TV or radio or every medium.  You’re going to be doing those days you don’t want to get up the crack of dawn, so those are all things that would help.

Kelly: At ESPN, you have internship programs.  What are some traits of the interns that really stand out in your mind at ESPN?

Matt: They’re just people you can tell, that want to be there.  They never say anything about their days off or their hours and they’re always paying attention when they’re being talked to or shown stuff.  They want to be there—it’s evident.  The people that are always concerned with their days off or always looking at their phone when you’re looking at them, those people can be weeded out pretty quickly.  A few people that I’ve worked with were interns beforehand, and I knew they’d be back because I could tell the way they would work and how they acted and how they carried themselves.  And they also weren’t afraid to jump in and make a mistake.  You’ve got to be able to do that, if you just hang back, you’re just like a fly on the wall.

Kelly: I know you got connected to ESPN through the whole job fair and elevator experience that you had, but what would be your advice for people, I think ESPN is one of those companies going into TV whether it be behind the scenes or in front of the camera, they aspire to.  What would be your advice to work at ESPN?

Matt: I think it goes along with what I was saying before.  Be passionate, and just because you didn’t start out right there at ESPN doesn’t mean you can’t get there.  I kind of say to younger professionals, move towards your passion, and a lot of the other stuff will fall into place.   You will start to meet the right people, you’ll start to talk to the right people, and you’ll do all those things you need to do.  I don’t have any specific magic or way to do it because my way was completely different than most peoples.  I’ve seen people get jobs off of job postings, by networking with people, I’ve seen them get jobs because of someone they know, who they were in college if they were an athlete or something—people may know them.  A good way, I think someone was asking me too—there’s got to be a resource close to you, close-by, whether it’s a team or stadium where you can volunteer or work there, even if it’s not your full-time gig, where people from ESPN will be there for an event.  They hire people called runners, that just coil cable, and those aren’t always the easiest to find, but if you’re hanging around the stadium or if you’re in that area, you probably have a better chance of meeting them or if you’re hanging out in the places that do, after the race or game starts.  If you’re in those areas, you probably have a better chance, and you can always, and if you’re talking to someone, you might as well strike up those conversations.  What’s the worst that’s going to happen?  I don’t have an exact formula, I would just say move towards your passion, and try to be around those people as much as you can, and something may break for you.

Kelly: How can people from the SportsNetworker and Sports Executives Association, how can they connect with you online?

Matt: I’m on the SEA on Facebook, and I’m on Linked In, so those two ways are the best way to connect with me.  I usually don’t turn too many people down but I’ve listened to Lewis Howes talk a few times, where he’s saying how people contact him and are asking for something.  I kind of feel the same way—you’re asking me for advice, that’s one thing, if you’re asking for me for a job, that’s kind of tough for me too, to be like I don’t even know who you are.  You have to think about that when you’re approaching people too, their reputation is on the line, when I’m recommending somebody, I’m putting a word in for somebody, I have to make sure they’re valuable and going to help out, because if they don’t, it’s on me, and I don’t want it to be on me.

Kelly: Is there anything else that you want to talk about or other advice that you have, or anything I haven’t asked you that you feel like is important to know, because this is your forum?

Matt: Going back to the power of saying yes, that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned in my career.  You have to be flexible and say yes to things, even if it looks bad, even if it seems bad, and especially when you’re a younger professional, and that’s maybe a mistake that I’ve made a little more, some things I would worry about that I shouldn’t have worried about or some things I could have done differently to help me now, but after a while, you have to let those go.  Sometimes I’ve seen really high potential people that are working in our company—younger people that come in—and they have a lot of good skills and they have good work ethic but sometimes they do stuff that may anger people that are a little older.  You have to keep that in mind.  I’m on the cusp.  I’m not a Millennium; I’m still a Generation X.  A lot of the Millennium’s are on Twitter and Facebook, but you have to realize when you’re going to do it and when it’s appropriate and who’s hiring you, because there are people who are hiring you that may be much older, and they may not be into social media or care about texting or you’re on the phone, so people coming into this profession, that’s one of the biggest things I would say to them.  Be careful with your phone and your posts online, because if you have so many great skills and you posted some weird picture on Facebook, someone is going to find it and see it.  You’re going to miss out on a job that maybe you were qualified for, so be smart about those things, that’s the best advice I could give.  Chill with the Facebook and Twitter and texting while you’re at work.

Kelly: Thank you so much for taking the time.  I know you have to go to work but really appreciate you and all the advice and information you’ve offered.  Have a great day and really appreciate it.

Matt: Sure, anytime.

Trevor Turnbull: Hey everyone it’s Trevor Turnbull here from Sports Networker and I’m joined via Skype right now by Austin Schindel. Austin is I guess you would say formally known as Austin, now known as the Xfinity sports guy. He is the winner of the ultimate sports social media contest. Welcome.

Austin Schindel: Thank you very much.

Yeah. Really looking forward to chatting with you about this. Obviously you’re working a job that I’m sure everybody that follows our Web site would love to have. Before we get into your background and everything else first of all tell us how has this first month has been for you.

The first month has been really incredible. I’ve always said that I wish I could go to the NFL Draft one of these days. Not only did I get to go the NFL Draft I got to go behind the scenes and meet all of the top 10 picks. It’s just been a little bit of a whirlwind, learning a ton in the first couple of weeks. When you dive yourself in there you see everything with branding and there’s just so much to learn every single day in the sports world and I’ve really been fortunate so far to be able to learn on the job. 

No kidding. What was your first reaction when you found out that you won? We posted an article on this in I think late January and the application process was right through to the end of March so there was almost a couple on months there where you were jockeying for position and trying to win the role so when you first heard about it what was your reaction.

When I first heard about it I was actually at my current internship right now. I was in an office and it was very quiet and I get this call and I’m trying to prevent myself from exploding in the office. Only one other person in the office knew that I was in it so they looked at me and said “did you win? did you win?” and I was like yeah, yeah. It was really incredible. The first thing I thought was I made it, which was incredible because I had wanted to work in sports, I had a couple of internships but I always planned on entering college with my first job being in sports but I didn’t understand what magnitude I’d be working in it. It took a while to realize that I had really just gone above and beyond what I thought was even possible right out of college. 

No doubt. So let’s talk about your background then. What brought you to this point? What’s your background school and your previous work experience.

I’m actually an international affairs major at George Washington University. I have never taken a sports class in my life but I have been inundated with sports since I was five years old. I own every single Topps baseball card since 1990, I woke up every morning and didn’t watch cartoons I watched SportsCenter.

As I went to college I started down one path and then I started working for the Washington Nationals as a summer intern and I worked for the Washington Redskins as a gameday social media intern. Those two internships were really important for me because what they said to me afterward was even though at the time some people don’t think those kind of internships are valuable I realized I was no longer afraid of the athletes, I understood the arenas.

Those were my two big internships and from there I also wrote for BleacherReport.com, I was an intern there. Then I was lucky enough to be hired as a featured columnist, I worked there for about a year and a half before this contest came about. That’s really my foundation of where I really started in sports.

So do you feel that background and experience of working the internships and then ultimately writing for a sports business nation helped you get this job in what way do you think?

I think I did help me because, like I said, when you’re at these internships and you think all you’re doing is handing out these papers or doing this little things. When you’re on the field you realize you learn a lot. You learn little things but you don’t think about them until later on.

When I went to Doral Golf Course for the finals and I’m standing next to Tiger and I’m standing next to Rory McIlroy I was like I’m here for a job. These guys have their job, I’m here for my job, I’m here for a reason. I think that was really important.

With Bleacher Report I was constantly researching, nonstop. They give you a topic; one article that I had to do was the top 100 players that will never make the Hall Of Fame. When I got that I was like how am I going to find 100 players. So I did it like a Bill-Simmons-style pyramid of the top 100 players. That took me I think three days straight of just sitting at my computer and going through baseball reference and all of those different things and just continuously learning.

Yeah. So tell us so far along the way what’s been the highlight. You obviously mentioned standing next to Tiger Woods; you’ve done some pretty cool stuff so far. You’ve been at the NFL Draft, you mentioned you were at the Opening Day for the Philadelphia Phillies. What’s been the highlight so far on the trip.

One of the highlights was definitely going on the stage at Radio City and taking a picture behind the podium and looking out; that was extraordinary.

I went to the MLB Fan Cave and I actually got to meet Penn Jillette; he’s awesome. All of those Fan Cave guys and girls are really cool, they have a great job there.

Also NFL headquarters was incredible because every single floor is themed something different. When you go up to like the fan room they just have pictures of fans on the wall. They have Fireman Ed and I’m a huge Jets fan so that was really cool. I’ve gotten the opportunity to see a lot of things that the people who work there see as commonplace but the fan that gets to go there it’s just incredible.

So in this role then, obviously Xfinity was thinking we have to put somebody who has their finger on the pulse, a true fan, into these places to give the behind the scenes. Throughout the experience what’s been your perspective on how social media has impacted sports from a fan perspective, an advertising perspective.

I guess what I’m saying is why do you think they hired you to represent the brand?

I had a very active Twitter before. I didn’t have a ton of followers.

A stat that we saw recently was 83% of people are on social media during games and 63% are using it. You can just see that the transformation is incredible. I’m at the NFL Draft and you can see people take pictures and tweeting them out and you realize that it’s becoming such an interactive experience that even if you’re sitting at home by yourself you can still talk to people who are genuine sports fans that have the same interests as you. I find that extremely interesting. I’ve learned that so quickly here that while I’m trying to engage the fans and find out where the interest lies you see that people are willing to talk and they’re willing to respond.

I’m not really interested in how high my follower count is or how many people I’m following, I know some people like to keep theirs low. I love having a ton of followers because then I know what they’re saying and I just love responding to them.

So throughout this whole experience then what are you actually managing? You’re managing the Xfinity sports Twitter account. Is there anything else?

Yeah I’m managing the Xfinity sports Twitter account on a daily basis. I am doing some blogging, a little bit of writing where we’re not really sure where it’s going to have a home yet. I’m taking a lot of pictures that we’re starting to make photo blogs for and we’re in creation for that. We’re really trying to expand how we show everything that we’ve been doing. Right now it’s primarily tweeting.

I understand too that Xfinity has given you a pretty wicked home package. You have all kinds of stuff like TVs. Maybe tell everybody about all of things that you’re getting from Xfinity.

Yeah Xfinity is really hooking me up. They’re trying to create the ultimate sports pad. I’m going to be having a 3D TV, iPad, several different televisions. Actually those Xfinity couches that you see on TV, I believe I will be getting one of those and that’s actually what I’m most looking forward to and that’s the most unique item that I think I’ll own.

They’re really giving me every way that a social media sports fan can be interacted and watch several things at once and be able to comment. That’s really all about putting the “dream job” in the title.

Yeah. So how long is this internship? How long do you actually work with Xfinity and what are some of the other things that you have coming up over the next few months?

This is a full-time job. It’s a year contract that started about a month ago. It runs through the year and we’ll see what happens.

Going forward I might be going to a UFC fight in Fairfax, hopefully going to Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Timothy Bradley June 9. Like I always said if they want to send me to the Olympics; I’m not going to say no but I don’t really know exactly how feasible that is. There’s tons of things; we have great partners at MLB Network and NBA Network and those kinds of things so who knows. Maybe I’ll wind up going to the NBA Draft, maybe a couple of baseball games this summer. We just have such great network partners that I think we’ll be able to eventually get to different arenas.

I guess that’s part of the fun isn’t it. It’s exciting you never know where you’re going to end up. There’s obviously a lot of sporting events that a person could end up at. It should be a fun year for you.

Is there anybody in particular, obviously you don’t know exactly where you’re going to be, is there anybody in particular in the sports industry that you’d like to be able to interview or talk to during this whole process.

I’ve always loved Rich Eisen from NFL Network. I think he’d be really cool; he’s really interesting. There’s Peter Gammons from MLB Network; he’s also a huge star. There’s so many great personalities, Mike Mayock from NFL Network.

I’ve really been fortunate so far with who I’ve been able to meet and just been able to sit down and talk to some of the people who not only are great with the game but study the game, know it and are able to have such great Twitter followings; I think those people would be great to interview.

Yeah and you get to learn from them along the way right? I think that’s probably one of the best parts about this experience is you’re going to get. The contacts that you’re going to make and the learning process along the way.

Again, we started this interview with there’s a ton of people that would want your job and there’s a lot of people watching this and thinking what can I do right now, what’s the first step I can take to go and follow in your path. What would that advice be that you would give to those people?

First I would say take every opportunity that comes to you. There’s no bad opportunity. Even if you’re working for a minor league baseball team, if you take that opportunity and run with it and do it extremely well and make contacts and learn the game and learn the ins and outs of just the business you’re going to be better off.

Two I would say you have to relax a little bit. I got lucky. With how I started with all my internships I had some friends who said I know someone who knows someone, I know you love sports. Just be proactive.

Always keep your Twitter and Facebook clean. I think that’s something that you don’t think about while you’re tweeting but people look at you’re Twitter if they’re going to hire you, that’s the new thing.

You have to work so hard. There is some sacrifice that comes along with it; I was writing some Bleacher Report articles late at night when I had school work to do when I didn’t really want to be doing it. It works for any industry but especially sports because there’s so many different things you can do. Learn what is out there, go for it.

The hardest thing is investing in yourself and trusting yourself that you’re going to be able to go into this internship and outshine five or ten other guys and girls. Trust yourself; if you know sports and you know you’re going to work for the Nationals learn everything about the players, learn everything about your bosses because it’s all out there.

Yeah. Great advice. Obviously we advocate that here on Sports Networker as well. You spoke to this; your first impression is essentially what you’re putting out there online. Your Twitter account, your LinkedIn profile, it’s really important to keep that up-to-date.

Austin thanks very much for doing this, we really appreciate it. Wish you nothing but the best going forward. It’s going to be an exciting year, we’ll no doubt be tweeting back and forth throughout the whole season and best of luck to you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.