Maryland Made Networking Night: Making Professional Connections Across Industries
Sophia Wooden, umterps.com Contributing Writer
12/6/2022
On Nov. 29, Maryland Made hosted a networking event with the objective of connecting student-athletes to career opportunities. There, Maryland Made professionals, student-athletes and company representatives got to make connections and discuss opportunities beyond college athletics.
Program Director of Student Athlete Development within Maryland Made, Nate McGill, describes the night’s event as a way to allow student-athletes to connect with professionals, in a low stress environment.
“A lot of times student-athletes can get overwhelmed with meeting professionals, so this is a way to come as you are and meet these professionals in a relaxed style,” McGill said.
McGill played football at Tennessee State and understands that student-athletes have a lot going on outside the classroom. However, he also emphasizes that athletes should work towards their careers after athletics. McGill also oversees the InTERPships Academy, which connects student-athletes to summer internships from a wide range of industries. Applications are open now, on the Maryland Made website.
There were a wide variety of companies in attendance including Monumental Sports, The Addison Group, Franklin Templeton Investments, and Our Minds Matter. Each representative had something to say about being a resource to connect student-athletes to different career opportunities.
Ashley Miller ‘08 is a UMD alum that now serves as a group sales manager for Monumental Sports with the Washington Wizards. Miller was a competitive cheerleader for the University of Maryland and always loves connecting Terps to career opportunities.
“Being a woman in sports, it’s very important to me that Monumental Sports reflects the way our world looks,” Miller said. “With Maryland down the street, I would love to connect future Terps and bring them into the sports world.”
Also in attendance was Will Warner, who is a Vice President of Franklin Templeton Investments. Based out of New York City, Franklin Templeton participated in this event as a part of The Equity Collective, an organization of asset managers that have come together to find the next wave of talent in the industry.
“We’re trying to find young leaders out of athletic programs like the University of Maryland,” Warner said. “We offer virtual and in-person internships and we have had a lot of success placing candidates from these programs. This is the first event we have done with Maryland and we are looking forward to this partnership.”
On the other hand, Our Minds Matter is a non profit organization that provides mental health resources for teens with a mission to see a day where no teen dies by suicide.
“Athletes have a different perspective when it comes to mental health issues because as a regular person we don’t know the pressures that athletes have to go through on a day to day basis,” program coordinator Ramona Plummer shared. “Teens already struggle with mental health in general, but it’s just different as a student-athlete.”
The company has an Athletes Minds Matter campaign specifically where they would love to hear athlete perspectives on coping methods of stress when they’re in season, out of season, in a championship game, and so on, according to Plummer.
There were even past Maryland Made athletes representing employers in attendance, looking to network with athletes. Leksana Andrews ‘22, a current Associate Recruiter at Addison Group, was one of those. She is a recent graduate of UMD and was a former student-athlete on the gymnastics team.
“Having been a part of Maryland Made, and having these resources given to me as an athlete, I definitely wanted to come back and do anything I can to give back,” Andrews said. “What they have here is really special.”
Student-athletes from all different stages were in attendance and were eager to make connections with employers.
“This event was great,” Andrew Brock, a freshman letters and sciences major on the baseball team, said. “I really enjoy connecting with Nate and making all of these good connections, especially starting off young as a freshman. I feel like this will be a huge help for later on down the road.”
Catherine DeRosa, a junior communications major on the women’s soccer team, came to the event to get real life experience outside of sports. DeRosa is highly involved with Maryland Made as the president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee.
“Not many universities have as many resources as we do, so as student-athletes I think it is really important to make the most of these resources,” DeRosa said.
“Coming to this event I really had to keep an open mind,” she added. “I really just wanted to take advantage of the resources that we have here at Maryland and the opportunity to network with extremely valuable people. Not knowing what I want to do, this is going to help guide me in the direction of that path. I am open to anything so meeting different people and learning about their background and experiences will help me narrow down what I want to do”.
The Maryland Made staff wants student-athletes to build their network, while also “allowing students to understand the career journey of certain professionals and learn about different career fields”, according to McGill.
While athletics are a core part of the lives of student-athletes, McGill works for students to overcome an “athletic identity, where they don’t see themselves outside of being athletes.” Maryland combats this by “being intentional behind our programming and intentional about the different programs we put in place”.
