Niyah Mullins

Professor Felder

SPM-4601-01

April 28, 2024

Exit Essay-Self-Analysis

My name is Niyah Mullins. This semester I interned at Valor Preparatory Academy under

Will Kannady. In this internship, I worked as an Athletic Director Intern. This internship

consisted of working with Athletics for grades 7th-12th. I dealt with many different sports and

various tasks throughout the days of my internship.

In this internship, I learned how to handle multiple sports seasons at the same time. I

learned time management by making sure that I got all tasks done in an efficient amount of time.

I learned how to communicate efficiently with multiple different entities needed to make

athletics go smoothly including coaches, athletes, companies, and field & recreation services. I

learned the meaning of making connections and I also feel that I learned how to be more

professional coming across email. The areas I experienced the most growth personally and

professionally were my confidence, professionalism, adaptability, and time management. The

areas I faced the most challenges were the constant rescheduling of games and accepting that

everything will not be picture perfect. I learned to control the controllable and don’t be too hung

up on mistakes but just try to fix them. I feel that I learned so many insights in the sports

industry, especially from some of the other activities outside of my internship this semester.

Some of those insights are it is not what you know but who you know, always try to be one step

ahead and try to have everything done ahead of time, and just have fun and be a sponge and try
to soak up all you can. Also, a lot of people always tell me I have what it takes to be an Athletic

Director and it makes me want to explore that. Some skills I learned were active listening,

communication, and adaptability. This internship has not influenced my career goals at all.

This internship did meet my expectations. I usually talk with my internship

supervisor, and he told me about my performance monthly, but we stayed in contact pretty much

every day. I would recommend doing your internship at a high school because it truly feels like a

rotational program.

My internship project was to manage baseball and soccer seasons. I did the

permits for each season; I handled all needs regarding the games and some practices. Whenever

they needed to reschedule games, it was directed to me which happened often. I had to often

make sure that all the dates aligned and that the communication with field people and the other

ADs was clear. The outcome is that all games were scheduled and kept very organized. The

season went smoothly.