Sebastian Hock at Coastal Carolina University, Conway, USA

From August 2012 to March, 2013 I spent roughly half a year in the United States for an exchange program as well as for a professional on-the-job training. As part of my sport management studies at Hochschule Koblenz, RheinAhrCampus, I attended Coastal Carolina University for my 4th semester. First I took some classes in a so-called Summer School Program. I then stayed for a little over 5 months for practical training. This internship took place in the Department of Athletics for Marketing & Promotions and Corporate Sales (i.e. External Relations). The required J-1 Internship Visa, issued by Cultural Vistas, allowed me to stay in the U.S. for a half year experience and potentially would have allowed me to get paid as well. However, the policy of the University did not consider such a payment. Consequently I was neither an enrolled student nor considered faculty/staff. The latter had the consequence that I didn't get the discount for food in the dining hall.

I took a couple of regular classes at CCU during my first few weeks in the United States. The philosophy of small class sizes in order to establish an environment where students are asked to interact, offers the opportunity to deal with a topic in greater depth. Furthermore the aspect of taking multiple tests, quizzes, writing reports and completing assignments or having presentations reminds of high school or comparable schools in Germany. So the workload throughout the semester is much more intense than in Germany. Campus life on the other hand follows strict rules concerning alcohol and parking, strongly enforced by officers and campus security, but on the other hand it’s like a small city by itself. You’ve got several different stores and a variety of restaurants to choose from. Furthermore you can play in collegiate athletic programs, club or intramural sports and have plenty of more leisure activities to pick according to your interests.

As far as theU.S. Culture is concerned, I’d like to stress that it comes down to the little things in life (that mean the most!?). There are no huge differences but after spending half a year in the United States you start realizing some materials and intangibles that differ. These are for example the door knobs, light switches, faucets, letter sizes and plug-ins but people do also differ concerning common values or conduct.
Due to hot and humid climate, air conditioning is widely used and people tend to like extreme temperature differences between the inside (cooled down immensely to almost a freezing temperature) and outside. You must respect though that this is just the way people like it and that they are used to it. But I cannot do other than shake my head and smile when my roommate lays in his bed with a sweatshirt on and his blanket pulled all over him an extra fan is running right next to him.

Furthermore the eating habits differ largely from what I am used to. First you are happy to encounter that there are some other fast food restaurants that are supposed to be even more delicious than McDonalds and Burger King. But at some time you start realizing that there are no ‘real’ restaurants where you sit down and order food. On the contrary it is rather difficult to eat fresh and healthy. Moreover the portions are very large and there are many places which offer all-you-can-eat. Moreover water is for free most of the times and people are used to being allowed to refill and not being charged heavily on drinks. In the region I stayed, typical food is fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, chicken bowl, mashed potatoes, corn, sweat tea or pork in honey sauce. Famous fast food chains that specialize on this kind of food are for example Bojangles and Zaxbys.
Concerning social interference, I’ve heard people tending to consider U.S. Americans to be superficial or sometimes even hypocritical in the way they act and communicate. I rather believe that for example the almost inflationary use of asking how you are or how you’ve been, is just a polite gesture and a behavior that shows respect and to an extent open minded-ness. Moreover I think the frequent use of ‘thank you’ and ‘thank you so much’, ‘I really appreciate this’, ‘I am truly sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ is remarkable. From my stand point, I really do appreciate this somewhat emotional involvement and honesty as well as politeness and respect.

In an attempt to stereotype a U.S. American, I would probably elaborate on convenience. The frequent use of cars even to cover small distances, parking lots right in front of huge shopping malls, where you can pretty much find everything you need, people putting the purchased items in bags for you as part of customer service, all the disposable plastic instead of recyclables or dishes you can wash and reuse – all these are things that cross my mind, which verify a convenient (but in some instances not sustainable) lifestyle. Pertaining to U.S. business practices, the hours of operation, especially but not limited to grocery stores, products, marketing and customer service come to my mind. First and foremost people in the U.S. are not used to drive to multiple stores but expect to get everything they need in one gigantic retail store or in malls which rely on shop-in-shop systems. In most cases you’ll find these supercenters – like Walmart, Food Lion or Kroger to only name a few – at a highway with a huge parking lot right in front of the building.

The internship

When I first started my internship during the fall, footballwas the no. 1 sport priority. Brooks Stadium accommodates approximately 9,400 fans. From a marketing perspective the entire week leading to a football game was special, because we put up flags every day at Chanticleer Alley and all along University Boulevard. The day of the event itself begins early as well because of the tailgating tradition before the gates open and kick-off. I really enjoyed watching our team play or listening to our coach at multiple press conferences, who is a former very successful business man and terrific speaker. I travelled with the team to Appalachian State in North Carolina and Old Dominion in Virginia and functioned as a chaperon on the bus rides organized for the students by Student Activities and Leadership Director Whitney Comer. I was very lucky to be part of the 2012/2013 basketball season at Coastal Carolina University. In the brand new, state-of-the-art HTC Center we had very professional equipment, a scoreboard center hung, two videoboards , 2 courtside LEDs and 2 LED facia panels for sponsors, statistics or go-to crowds/prompts. All in all there are 2 balconies and 2 suites for hospitality events and 5 concession stands plus the Chanticleer Store. In the concourse there was room for a marketing table, other tables to hand out free T-shirts or promotional give-aways like handwarmers, pizza cutters, pom poms/shakers, glow sticks, mini basketballs, refrigerator magnets, grocery or sling bags etc. and table displays/sampling opportunities for sponsors.

Out of 15 home men's basketball games during the regular season, Coastal won 12. The average attendance for those games has been almost 2370 fans. This is why attendance marketing was one of the key objectives of my internship. Even though the HTC Center was considered to be "sold out" three times in the inaugural season, the arena which is able to seat more than 3600 people has never been completely full. Another ongoing problem was the attendance rate up in the suits. Even though they pay for their seats, free food and drinks as part of their sponsoring contract at the beginning of the year and receive a reminder email prior to the game, they do not show up regularly. Profit-wise this is not an issue but attendance wise this amount counts and it also doesn't look very nice. Concerning the paying audience in comparison to students, who will receive free admission if they show their ID, our boss held a simple view: The students make the atmosphere which is one of the reasons why the general fan and sponsors pay the ticket fees. We implemented a ticket system for basketball that we basically adopted from football, which allowed students to pre-register online to guarantee their seats. Moreover, throughout the 2013 spring sports we intensified the student reward program as an incentive for students to attend athletic events. Towards the end of my internship the planning of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South conference tournament came to a closure. 21 basketball games in 6 days needed to be organized and scheduled as well as shoot-arounds and the battle of the bands contest. Moreover the creation of the twitter account @CCUGameDayOps and a hashtag #MyrtleBeachMadness were communicated to everybody as well.

What started as a corporate sponsorship internship ended in a broad variety of different tasks, duties and assignments that I embraced willingly. The focus definitely shifted to marketing, game-day event operations and in-game promotions.

My very first project when I first started my internship was to create an excel database for all the music we have had collected throughout the years - more than 1000 songs. Besides the name of the song, this database featured the name of the artist, year of release and the music genre (e.g. for theme nights) as well as a recommendation or remark when this music should be played during the game and in order to achieve what sort of response from the fans. In addition I paid attention to whether the song was family friendly, included swearing or inappropriate language, profanity or obscenity. Further projects throughout the course of the internship have been Hoopla(midnight madness) a pre-season event to promote the men's and women's basketballseason and a chance to have the players interact with fans and thus to connect them with the team just as through individual player bios published on our homepage, facebook and twitter, based on the evaluation of a questionnaire dealing with the lighter-side of the student athletes. I helped in the event management of the Run-Kick-Pass Competition, National Girls and Women in Sports Day (both sport clinics at Brooks Stadium), Hardee's Hot Shot Challenge and was the organizer of theGirl and Boy Scout Day and the Let's Read with Chauncey Program in which 12 Horry County elementary schools and more than 1300 students participated in as well as the Mascot Day event for which I invited 22 mascots to a basketball game. Many of these projects or events aimed at winning new fans, promoting our athletic programs and growing a database to contact these groups or individuals respectively. Theme nights like Beach Night or Superhero Night featuring prizes for best dressed attracted students, fraternities, sororities or clubs to come to the games and thereupon reached a different audience.

Besides posters and banners around campus, in local stores and restaurants as well as handing out flyers at busy places such as the commons dining hall, hicks dining hall or prince lawn, accompanied by coaches and/or players or on your own, I was especially interested in the social media aspect of promoting upcoming events. The opportunities to target your audience in twitter through @connect free of cost or via specific search options at facebook, offered substitutional for a certain fee which increases the more detailed your criteria are, is a very interesting up-to-date topic. In collaboration with video services and sports info/media relations we created contents for our website goccusports.com and youtube page /user/TheRoosterFeed.

For the last 2 months of my internship my major duty was to write the basketball game scripts for public address announcer, music, cheerleading, pep band, in-game contests sold to corporate partners (on-court, video board, social media) including organisation of recognitions and presentations, and to some extent video services. After first proofreading for my boss, I more and more took over the writing of this elementary preparatory script and accordingly the collection of all relevant information the days leading to the event. Looking back on the internship this was possibly one of the most challenging tasks.

Every once in a while I assisted my supervisor Mark Payne, the Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Relations, in tasks with reference to sponsoring and corporate sales. I double checked all contracts with corporate partners and the respective spreadsheet for completeness and accuracy and in case assisted in the fulfilment of single aspects. I thought it to be very exciting when the signage and decals for our sponsors were put up like on the corners of the centre hung, when the back-lit signs at the video boards were installed or the decals for the chair backs were created in the sign shop. During games I took pictures of these signs, the video board and the LEDs in order to prove that we adhered to the sold components of the contract and to individualize future follow-on contracts with the same company. Another project of mine throughout the entire internship was to assist in prospecting new corporate partners. By inviting mascots of companies to the mascot day event, which so far have not been sponsors of ours, I did not only list the contact information of the respective firm but also left a positive impression. A board of trustee member called the mascot day event the “ultimate family experience”.

I cannot stress enough the significanceof the internship for my studies. The practical experience that I gained challenged my understanding of studying in comparison to hands-on work and the ability to work with software tools such as photo shop, publisher, power point and excel. Nevertheless or therefore I think I have been positively reinforced in my decision to study sport management and the on-the-job training immensely enhanced the quality of my education. It has been a pre-eminent experience for me, personally as well as professionally and I am very grateful to be given this opportunity.

Sebastian Hock