Daniel Quezada, 2024
Our group was tasked with organizing a field day/fundraiser to support the university's student-led sports organizations. Over a semester, we worked on planning, brainstorming, and gathering ideas and materials that would contribute to a great event. Teamwork, communication, and ingenuity were all necessary for planning and hosting the final event.
Words of Wisdom
- Be bold and be innovative.
Maddie McComb, 2025
This semester, I worked alongside Alex Gilbert, the Director of Marketing at the Dallas Sports Commission (DSC), to further their contacts with non-profit organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I extensively researched 27 organizations that the DSC could partner with. I developed a survey to gain more information on the non-profits and their experience (if any) with the DSC. This survey provided the DSC with more knowledge about the non-profit organizations in the area. Over the last few months, I have learned several valuable lessons, including persistence, time management, and patience. My Capstone Experience - Business Project also allowed me to further my professional skills to be successful in the future.
Words of Wisdom
To the student about to start their Culminating Experience: This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so do not take it for granted and strive to get the most out of this! You can gain many amazing lessons from this, and it is a huge privilege to participate in something like this. Here are a few words of advice and encouragement:
- Manage your time wisely: Dedicate time each week to sit down and work solely on your project.
- Maintain constant contact with your business partner: This shows them that you are dedicated and passionate and keeps them in the loop regarding your progress.
- Persevere: Sometimes you may get stuck and need help figuring out where to go with some situations, or in my case, other companies may not answer you as fast as you would like. Do not be afraid to ask your professor or business partner for help, and do not give up on yourself! You are so capable of being successful. You may have to be more consistent in reaching out or working around your speed bumps. Your professor and partner are there to support you, so reach out to them.
Brendan Fahy, 2025
My Culminating Experience was pretty cool. I had the opportunity to work for Victory Sports, a Catholic youth sports league. More specifically, I helped with the upcoming soccer season. I had tasks weekly that were important and time-sensitive for the season. It was fulfilling in the end to see your work pay off and, more importantly, create a good environment for the next generation of athletes.
Words of Wisdom
Carson Asbery, 2024
My Capstone Experience - Business Project was full of interesting and purposeful learning experiences. I formulated ideas and practiced time management, not only by myself, but in coordination with the others in my group and our business project partners. This experience has helped me tremendously with the ability to communicate and solve complex problems.
Words of Wisdom
- Be proactive and pay attention.
Dalton Collinsworth, 2024
For my Capstone Experience - Business Project, Gavin Mach and I worked for Tim Aughenbaugh with ScoreFeed. It is an app that covers football, boys and girls basketball, volleyball, and boys and girls hockey in Minnesota, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming.
Our goal was to research information for football, boys and girls basketball, and volleyball for the remaining 42 states and organize it into an application called Coda. We found the athletic association for each state and then sport-specific information such as team classifications, game structures, regular season and playoff regulations, handbooks, and important dates. With that information, we found three states that would be best to use for their next apps.
This project has been an invaluable experience, equipping me with unique skills and knowledge that will undoubtedly shape my future. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity, as it has truly been one of the most enriching semesters of my academic journey at Texas A&M.
Words of Wisdom
- Communicate with everyone.
- Manage your time well.
- Utilize your resources.
Ben Carlson, 2024
I worked with the Dallas Sports Commission (DSC) and the Director of Business Development, Andrew Dockrill, to research and identify an emerging sports market for DSC to pursue in future events. My research involved looking at what other sports commissions in the United States were doing and compiling all my findings onto a detailed spreadsheet. From there, I compared the demographics of Dallas to those of the events being considered, and I saw that the options began to narrow. After analyzing the information and observing industry trends, I proposed to bring an IRONMAN event to Dallas.
Words of Wisdom
- This is a great experience; give it your all.
Emiliano Mendoza, 2025
My project involved developing a Latino marketing platform for major events in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I had the opportunity to participate in professional meetings with our business partner, an experience I had never had before. I was grateful for the chance to learn about marketing in the sports world and to present in front of someone in the sports industry. This experience was invaluable to me as I had never worked in a professional setting or in marketing. I learned a lot from this experience and plan to apply it to my future career.
Words of Wisdom
- Take advantage of the situation and make the most of your opportunity.
Jack Tucker, 2023
In my internship with Peak Events, I sold corporate sponsorships for Peak Events' collegiate baseball tournaments. This included cold-calling and dropping in on different businesses to engage in B2B transactions. During the internship, I went through the entire sales process, including prospecting, cold-calling, data needs analysis, presenting, negotiations, and closing with every client for our Las Vegas Classic.
Words of Wisdom
- Never be scared to try new things; always utilize your time wisely.
Jack Chance, 2024
My Business Project for the Valero Alamo Bowl was a social media and marketing hybrid project. The goal of this experience was to give guidance and input based on actual statistics and hard proof to reach new audiences and expand all social media platforms for the organization. During this experience, I created spreadsheets compiling numerical data of the Valero Alamo Bowl's competitors and how they run their social media. I have also introduced multiple social media expansion options, such as creating link-grouping websites, posting schedules, and new content ideas. In December, my partner and I traveled to San Antonio to work as a volunteer for the game and the week leading up to it.
Words of Wisdom
- Speak up about your opinions and let them know how you feel about certain things.
- Prove to others that you are worth listening to.
Hannah Ager, SPMT 2023
In the second summer session in 2022, I had the pleasure of attending Dr. Paul Batista’s Sport Business in Europe education abroad trip. It was a five-week-long trip to Germany and Austria, with opportunities for independent travel on our weekends when we did not have anything scheduled (our trip group chose to go to Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Dublin, Ireland). In these five weeks, I met some of my closest friends that I still talk to nearly every day. There were so many opportunities for us to explore what we wanted to on our own while still having the structure of the trip planned for us. Some of my favorite sites that we got to visit were FC Cologne’s stadium and FC Bayern Munich’s stadium. I have watched and kept up with these teams for a very long time and seeing these stadiums in person rather than on TV was exhilarating. Another one of the most influential sites we got to visit was the Dachau Concentration Camp located outside of Munich. I have learned about World War II and the Holocaust so much throughout the years at school and through movies. But nothing compares to walking through where these horrors actually happened. It was so eerie and incredibly sad. I was pretty much speechless the entire time I was there and left with a really gloomy feeling. I am really grateful that I got to see that in person because it is incredibly moving and shows the reality of what happened during that time. We also had the opportunity to listen to many different guest lectures throughout our trip that were all extremely interesting. My favorite lecture by far was Mr. Felix Boronczyk’s discussion about European soccer. Since I know a pretty good amount about the topic, what he was talking about all made sense to me and I found it really interesting.
Words of Wisdom
- Studying abroad gives you a whole new perspective on how people in other countries live and it is really cool.
- You will (hopefully) meet some of your closest friends on the trip.
- Spending every moment of 5 weeks together leads to you bonding quickly with your group!
- It is an experience you can't get back, there are so many opportunities for scholarships and financial aid for the trip. I would preach to anyone that they should find a way to go.