This past week, I went on a contact list spree. I knew that the only way that I would find the emails of professionals from colleges was directly from the source: the athletics staff directory. And that’s exactly what I did--I found all of the professionals from each college in charge of media, communications, or journalism and sent them my email to request a research interview. Lucky enough, I landed a few interviews! First, I interviewed with Mr. Mark Cohen, Athletics Director of Communications from Texas Christian University. I learned so much from that interview including relationships with players, game day, preparing the team for interviews, and a lot about the behind the scenes of the media team. He definitely tried to recruit me and highly encouraged me to apply to TCU for the fall as well! My second interview was with Mrs. Kris Toledo, a sideline reporter for ESPN. I was shocked when she was eager to talk to me about her career! Her job sounds so much fun and she gave me a lot of good advice for beginning my career interest in the sports industry. However, after both of these interviews, I’ve come to realize that COVID-19 has impacted the sports world in so many ways that a student like me would have very limited access to the department making it challenging to find a mentor. But, I remain optimistic about it and am looking forward to more interviews to come!