Go Blazers! My tour inside the Blazer’s locker rooms

Keri S.

October 16, 2009 - 7:45 PM

After a rough week of lock-down due to being sick, I was so excited to get out of the house today. I joined 12 Alpha Kappa Psi brothers and went on a site tour of the Rose Garden in Portland (home of the Blazers). As a Sports Business major, I was so excited to go to the Rose Garden and learn the ins and outs of the NBA world in Portland.

The tour started with a question and answer session with six employees of the Blazers, including the Director of Marketing, Director of Events, Senior Financial Analyst, Director of Interactive Marketing and Media. All of these people had great stories and great advice. Dan, the Director of Interactive Marketing and Media, talked about how Google is the new resume. Whenever he gets a new application, he always looks to see what the potential hire's "digital footprint" is. He encouraged us all to get a "digital footprint" beyond Facebook-Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and more. Lucky for me, I am learning all about these different social media in my Journalism class, and how I can use these tools to market myself and help me to find a job. All of the panel members talked about personal branding and how you need to present yourself in order to get a job.

After this, we went on a site tour and learned all about the Rose Garden and Memorial Coliseum. Part of our tour included a tour of the locker rooms and training facilities for the Blazers! It was so much fun to see where the Blazers have press conferences, team meetings, workouts, and showers (oh la la!). As an up and coming Blazer fan (I have only been following the team for about a year now), I was star struck when we walked into the locker room-it was all so glamorous! Looking in all of lockers was so cool-seeing who was motivated by different things. For example, some of the locker rooms included pictures and drawings from little children. That was the cutest thing for me to see! I stood in the middle of the locker room, listening to all my friends "ooh" and "ahh" over the athlete's lockers and personal possessions, and closed my eyes. I imagined it was half time of the biggest game of the season for the Blazers, and everyone gathered around in the locker room for the half time talk. I was so star struck realizing I was standing where Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Greg Oden would stand in just a few days for the next game. It was like a dream!

This site tour was so inspiring. Although most of the panel members said that you will work 80 hour weeks for under $30,000 for your first job, hard work and determination will quickly get you into your dream job. I came back to campus ready to work hard and finish off my senior year with a bang. Although I still get the "what am I doing with my life" freak outs, I now feel I can breathe a little easier. I realize that I am doing things now that are making me more marketable for jobs in the future.