Finally Underway!

Hi everyone!

Well, it has been a little over 24 hours since our program began, and what a whirlwind it has been. We started off yesterday with mostly administrative nuts and bolts at McClelland Hall, but ended our time there with 2 guest speakers. First was Dr. Len Jessup, the Dean of the Eller College, who came down and wished us well, and reminded us that we are truly lucky to have this unprecedented experience and to represent our college, university and country well. Our 2nd guest speaker was Olympic Silver Medalist, World Champion and NCAA Champion and Woman of the Year Lacey Nymeyer-John, who talk to us about the StepUP program (peer responsibility and leadership) and her own Olympic Experience. I think I can speak for a majority of the people in that room when I say she gave us goosebumps! It made everyone very anxious to get to London.

After we left the U of A, we checked in at our hotel and then headed out to the Tucson Padres minor league baseball game. It was a great atmosphere to interact with everyone on the trip and start to get a little more familiar with one another. Then, bright and early this morning, we all went over to the ropes course at the U of A (picture below - credit Sports Management Facebook) and participated in all sorts of team building exercises with our own teams! We have been divided up into 7 teams for projects and such on the trip, and this was a really useful event to learn all about our teammates. After the course, we grabbed some lunch, and headed back to the hotel where we are now (Star Pass - great views of Tucson!). We leave tomorrow morning for Dallas, with a full week ahead of us. We will be attending a huge collegiate athletic conference with high ranking executives from many companies and schools, namely the CEO of Under Armour. Our 4 faculty have promised that this week will be especially exhausting, but that it is similar in that sense to working in collegiate athletics. I cannot wait to see what we have in store for the next couple days!

Although the trip is just getting under way, there is already a feeling among the group that we have a really strong group of students and that we are going to have an incredible upcoming 6 weeks.

Until next time,
Ben