In September of 2023, I began my role with Hornets Sports and Entertainment, as a Marketing and Game Presentation Intern for the Greensboro Swarm. Within this position I take upon a plethora of responsibilities, while in the office and at games. One of the first big assignments I had was to work with the 2 other interns and put together our annual Fan Fest event, from start to finish. We had to create a script with a run of show, input times when everything would take place, set up stations during the event, communicate with the host, and more. This was a major task for us, but also rewarding. It showed me how to truly be a leader and step up, regardless of how young I may be, compared to everyone else. During the event, it was a pleasure seeing everything come to fruition, after thinking of ideas for the event, for weeks. I would say that from that day, my confidence boosted as an intern and has led me to want to continue and participate in major duties.
One of my favorite roles is working on the game program, that is displayed to fans during our home games. I have been adding pages with creative graphics and information, that will be intriguing to a viewer. Since the first time I started working on this, til now, the numbers have increased and I am hoping to reach record breaking numbers with this game program for the season. Something else I do is contact mascots for upcoming home games, to have them tag along with our mascot, Swarmy. I also am in charge of our mascot request form. Around the area, Swarmy is well known and people like to book him for appearances. When doing so, they have to fill out a form, which automatically sends to my email and I have see if our Mascot is available or not, and then update the sender. I also love editing videos for the team and adding captions to them. I often make videos on my free time, so that is something I am accustomed to doing.
During the games I take pictures of fans, players, and our partnerships. Our fans are often very hyped so it is my goal to catch that in action and share with the team. I also like capturing videos of our team, especially when it is a close ball game. I have caught 2 game winners, one by Trevon Scott and another by Jaylen Sims (which can be seen on Greensboro Swarm instagram). My manager often has me update the post game graphics, with the player of the game and update stats from our team, and pictures.
With me being an HBCU student, I have played a big role in collaborations we are doing with other HBCU’s. We have an HBCU Night coming up, so I was put in charge of setting up a meeting for a DJ battle that we have planned, as well as reaching out to school’s mascots and performers. Using my network has aided me in this role and has shown me that this is the position that I want to continue to work in while in the sports and entertainment industry.
