Seventeen Slippery Rock students had the opportunity to travel to this year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans to gain job experience and help the event run smoothly this past weekend.
The students left for the trip last week and returned on Tuesday after helping with pre-game events and working the big game.
Among the students selected by the Department of Sport Management were Nick Mote, Morgan Rullo, Mikayla Perry, Bree Weaver, Emma Balaban, Ethan Sarver, Niko O’Toole, Joseph Young, Brent Martin, Aaron Chaplin and Zander Bennett.
Students got a taste of the fast-paced environment they are likely to encounter in the industry, along with unconventional hours and changing schedules.
“It was different every day. The first three days we worked at the Super Bowl Experience, which is kind of the NFL’s fan fest carnival type-deal. That was at the convention center, and then the last day we worked at the game itself,” Sport Management department chair Dr. Brian Crow said.
The NFL’s Super Bowl Experience took place from Feb. 5 through last Saturday and offered a variety of attractions for fans. The event was held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and included games, autograph and photo opportunities, and exclusive merchandise.
The students’ Super Bowl Sunday tasks were providing wayfinding information and escorting more than 2,000 credentialed media to various locations.
They were not the only Slippery Rock students to have the opportunity to go on the trip. Others were selected to work different jobs with Allied Universal, a security and facility services company.
“We had selected 12 sport management students to work directly with us and then [Tyler Kefauver] and several other students work for a company called Allied Universal,” Crow said. “They do the security down at Acrisure Stadium, so they were selected by them to go work the Super Bowl as well.”
The five students who went with Allied universal were Kefauver, Brandon Boyles, Rylan Zale, Anthony Kuhns and Ryan Naugle. They were tasked with being security supervisors at the AFC hotel.
The benefits for students working these events are plenty. While much of the job can be learned in a classroom, the real-life experience allows students to see not only the amount of work it takes to put on these massive productions, but also to interact with others currently working in their future field.
“I would say there are several parts. One is seeing a world-class, large-scale event come together. Two is the bonding experience with all the people on the trip I think is really helpful. And three would be networking with folks from the industry that they get to meet,” Crow said.
Another benefit is the opportunity to bring back knowledge gained from the experiences to students who were not able to go on the trip.
“One of our goals is to have the students who went share their experiences with the students who weren’t able to go,” Crow said.
Mikalya Perry, a sophomore Sport Management major, was one of the students selected to go on the trip.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced anything in the industry scaled so big. Being able to see, not only how interacting with the fans can be, but the behind the scenes when we worked the game day. Seeing all that goes into it, how many different departments work together,” Perry said. “I think getting experience in the industry is the best way to grow as a person and learn as much as you can.”
The time and effort spent to put productions such as the Super Bowl together can be jarring, but Perry discussed how rewarding it can be to be part of bringing that experience to fans.
“I think that it’s not for everybody. Some people can be turned away by the long hours and things like that, but that’s what I like the most about it,” Perry said. “Working with the fans and seeing how you can make a memory that will last forever I think is something that you don’t get in a lot of industries. It’s special.”
Trips like this one are a focus of Slippery Rock’s Sport Management Department, but it took some connections to get this notable of a trip put together.
“We had been doing events for many years with sport management students. I kind of always thought the Super Bowl was out of reach, but I contacted a couple other colleagues from different universities who had gone and got connected to the right people,” Crow said. “They invited us and then we secured funding from SGA, so it all came together.”
In addition to funding and planning, the trip was made possible with help from volunteer chaperones Paul Lueken and Dallas Kline.
Lueken served as Slippery Rock’s director of athletics from 1994-2021 and Kline is currently working for SRU as an assistant director of first-year admissions.
This year marks the second year in a row SRU students were able to take advantage of this opportunity. Crow mentioned the department would like to continue taking students to the Super Bowl if location and funding permit.
