My DD is a hs junior. She’s an athlete and has an interest in working in the sports field. She’s looked at PT but the 7 years of school is not appealing to her. Nor is she a fan of taking 2 semesters of Biology because she hates cutting animals in lab. She likes science and is good at math. Hates everything related to history. She’s studying German and enjoys it. Any thoughts on possible majors? It stresses her out to have no idea what she wants to do. She likes to be active, gets bored sitting for too long. So a job in a lab is not for her.
Physical education / athletic training / kinesiology will require some biology course work.
However, education in statistics, economics, sociology, business, etc. can be applied in sports contexts (e.g. sports analytics, sports business), though there may be few jobs in that specialty compared to the overall job market to which such education can be applied to.
A teacher and coach?
Recreation (running rec centers, working for youth sports, cities, corporate wellness centers)
Sports Team Management
Broadcasting/journalism
Marketing
Human Resources
My niece’s first job after graduating with a degree in IR was making phone sales calls for the Avalanche. She hated it but many of her friends worked there and loved it, moved up in the organization (hockey, basketball, soccer), loved doing the marketing and event planning.
Be wary of personal training as a career field – it’s a somewhat viable field and lots of demand due to the churn – but the churn is due to the very low wages.
Some universities offer a combo of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism.
Or maybe she might like something in nutrition with a concentration on hospitality management. The nutrition major would tap into her math skills & chemistry. The hospitality minor/concentration would keep her moving to go check on things. She might be able to go different paths with it like catering or coordinating venue events.
Public Relations might work for her and can be sports related.
We’ve discussed teaching and she has no interest. I’m not familiar with kinesiology so will have to look that up. She knows about personal training and has no interest in that route. Public relations and nutrition is an interesting idea I had not thought of.
There is also public health.
Check requirements for biology. D’s intro level biology class did not include cutting into animals. She had to take biology to be a teacher but it was not different from what STEM kids took, at least not at that level.
I think diet, nutrition and public health are all good ways to go but may also require biology .
If she just wants a job with a lot of outdoor work she could consider Geology or Forestry or Environmental Sci.
My son, a math and Econ major, loves sports and dreams of a career in sports analytics working for a pro team, for example. But he is having a hard time finding a job in that field, it’s very competitive, so I suggest it with reservation of the reality of finding a job. But because she likes math, it may appeal to her.
UMass-Amherst has a sports management major that’s part of the Isenberg School of Business. You can get a BS in Sports Management. Majors take courses in management, marketing, and finance with a focus on sports. I know a couple of kids from our town who have graduated and gone on to work in the sports field. One works for a minor league baseball team and the other works for an event planning company that focuses on sporting type events.
My brother was a sports management major at UMass (eons ago) but he finished at another school. He has been running his own youth sports league for many years.
No one can make a tournament schedule like he can!
Considering that, some possible jobs to consider:
Door-to-door related sales rep…especially for sports/health related products…
Soldier/Military Officer in a Combat-Arms branch(i.e. Army/Marine Infantry*)
Law Enforcement
Any consulting job requiring some traveling whether it’s multiple offices in a local town/city/region or across multiple states/countries.
- Knew several elementary school classmates who opted for the military as enlistees after HS or as officers in the Army/Marines after college/ROTC partially because they wanted an "active" job where they won't be sitting around for too long. Also, the military is now opening up many of these combat-arms branches to women, especially considering they've already started to not only admit women to Army Ranger School, but already graduated a few very recently.
The only person I know with a degree in Sports Management (from a Big 10 school about 5 years ago) had no luck finding a job in that field, unless you count his second job (summers) at a golf course getting minimum wage plus tips. His main job is also low-paying with no health insurance - parking valet captain.
Sports information director. YMCA director.
I would have her look into sports marketing/public relations. I had a boss who was a college basketball player. His first job out of college was doing marketing for the Dallas Mavericks.
That’s too bad,@Madison. My college roommate was a Recreation major (and I knew a lot of her friends). She had entry level jobs as the aquatic director of beautiful new rec center (Lotto funds go to parks and recreation in our state), and has continued with similar positions for 40 years. My brother runs his very successful sport league, and before that worked for city parks and rec department. When I lived in California, our town posted a position for a director and it paid $100,000+ (of course lifeguards in California can make $150k+ as some are fire department employees).
My daughter’s roommate and teammate is a Sports Management major right now. This summer she had an internship with a professional team. I’m not sure how much she made, but she had fun.
It takes a lot of the same skills as sales to be successful in sport management. It’s not a 9-5 job - lots of weekends, late nights, travel. Sounds exciting, but it’s tiring. You have to like people, to talk to the ranting parents and coaches, work out disputes, think outside the box if it is raining or snowing or teams don’t show up or want exceptions to the posted rules.
Another brother is a referee, and makes a living at it. He makes more organizing a tournament than actually being on the field, but does both.