If you’re like I was my first year, you’re a little overwhelmed with all the stuff going on in your life right now. But you’re a big sports fan, newly retired from a (not so) decorated high school athletics career, hoping to stay in the game (and make your parents feel like they aren’t wasting thousands of dollars by sending you to Booze University).
At Miami University, you’re in luck. Whether you want to keep playing, or chase a career somewhere in sports or sports-adjacent, this article will tell you the perfect way for you to get involved. You can find contact information to get into any of these opportunities on the Miami website, but if you’re really stuck, my email is at the bottom of this article and I can get you in touch with the right people.
Join student media! I hope I don’t damage my ethos too much with this shameless plug, but come on — I had to put myself first. If you want to go to Miami sporting events, sit up in the pressbox (or courtside for hoops and volleyball) and get free media food (this hits different when you don’t have a meal plan), you should join student media. For The Miami Student (which you are reading right now), you can write stories, work with video or audio, or create a podcast. If you’d be interested in doing play-by-play or color commentary, you can get in touch with the student radio station, RedHawk Radio. You don’t have to be a journalism major, have any experience or even be any good at writing (we’ll help you).
Play intramural sports: If you’re just looking to stay active and have fun, intramural sports are for you (if you’re looking for something more competitive, our next option might interest you). You can register for intramural sports on the Miami website. You can register with a whole team, or as a free agent where someone will hopefully pick you up. Miami’s intramural options are numerous, including basketball, hockey, broomball, soccer, volleyball, softball and even billiards and esports.
Club Sports: Club sports are much more competitive than intramural sports and generally include some time commitment. If you join a club team, you’ll practice with your teammates, play different schools’ club teams, and likely spend some nights and maybe a weekend or two on the road per year. Miami has a huge number of club offerings, including quidditch, jump rope, clay shooting, tough mudders, water ski, ultimate frisbee, martial arts and powerlifting. Basically any mainstream sport and most of the non-mainstream ones too are represented.
Work for the athletic department: The Miami Athletic department offers many internships for students who may be interested in working in the administrative or business sides of athletics one day. You can work with athletics communications, marketing and broadcasting, you can work on the academic side, you can work with facility and equipment services, ticket operations, even strength and conditioning and more.
Be a student manager: This is one that I don’t think nearly enough students take advantage of. Whatever your sport is, you can try to get a gig as a student manager for that team and learn from people who are extremely successful in it. This isn’t a very structured option; you might just have to send a bunch of emails until you get your way, but it can be a path to a coveted position within sport operations for some organization one day. Many teams also need practice players.
